Manuel Rivero Pardal, a famous Spanish privateer, happened across an enemy ship that had fewer guns and fewer men; he was so excited to engage them, but his crew had left a lot to be desired.

>More good news arrived when John Morris sailed into the bay. The irrepressible Manuel Rivero Pardal was dead. Morris had come upon Rivero by sheer accident. After patrolling the coast of Cuba for intelligence about Spanish ship movements and war plans, he’d come up empty. When a storm whipped up, he put his ship in to a sheltered cove on Cuba’s eastern shore. At dusk another vessel came gliding into the bay: the *San Pedro y la Fama*, also looking for a place to ride out the storm. >On seeing the English ship, Rivero was delight6ed: He had fourteen guns to the *Dolphin’s* ten, and his crew was primed for battle, “having taken on eighty musketeers and good stores of ammunition, grenadoes and stinkpots.” >For Rivero it would be another notch in his belt, but this time he was facing hardened buccaneers, not frightened farmers in the Jamaican wilderness. But at the first shot, his men began abandoning their posts and diving into the water. Their appalled commander tried to rally them, but as he shouted at them to man their guns, a single bullet pierced his throat and he fell. _____________________________ **Source:** Talty, Stephan. “Black Clouds to the East.” *Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan’s Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws’ Bloody Reign*. New York: Crown Publishing Group (NY), 2007. 198. Print. _____________________________ **Further Reading:** [John Morris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Morris_(pirate\)) [Manuel Ribeiro Pardal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Ribeiro_Pardal)