Cannons thought to be Capt. Morgan's
Texas, March 21 (UPI) -- U.S. archaeologists say they've recovered cannons from a shipwreck thought to be the flagship of English pirate-for-hire Capt. Henry Morgan.
Morgan led a raid in 1761 on what is now Panama City, then the richest prize in Spain's colonial empire, leading thousands of men and a heavily-armed naval fleet.
However, Texas State University underwater archaeology Professor Frederick Hanselmann says, whatever Morgan possessed in military strategy skills he lacked in navigation ability -- crashing his flagship, the Satisfaction, into a reef on Panama's coast, causing it and three of four other ships to sink, The Austin (Texas) American -Statesman reported Sunday.
The ships were lost and forgotten for centuries, until last year, when Hanselmann and fellow archaeologists discovered the cannons that might have belonged to Morgan's fleet. If confirmed as belonging to the fleet, they will be the first direct evidence of the presence of Morgan or his men in the area.
The guns are undergoing restoration in Panama, where they will eventually be displayed in a museum.
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