Editing Gregor MacGregor (section)

===Porto Bello===
The [[Third Republic of Venezuela|third Venezuelan republic]]'s envoy in the British capital borrowed £1,000 for MacGregor to engage and transport British troops for service in Venezuela, but the Scotsman squandered these funds within a few weeks. A London financier, an old friend of MacGregor's called Thomas Newte,{{sfn|Rodriguez|2006|p=106}}{{sfn|Bennett|2001|p=203}} took responsibility for the envoy's debt on the condition that the general instead take troops to New Granada.{{sfn|Vittorino|1990|pp=60–61}}{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=189–192}} MacGregor funded his expedition through the sale of commissions at rates cheaper than those offered by the British Army,{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=189–192}} and assembled enlisted men through a network of recruiters across the British Isles, offering volunteers huge financial incentives. MacGregor sailed for South America on 18 November 1818 aboard a former Royal Navy [[brigantine]], renamed the ''Hero''; 50 officers and over 500 troops, many of them Irish, followed the next month. They were critically under-equipped, having virtually no arms or munitions.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=194–195}}

The men came close to mutiny at Aux Cayes in February 1819 when MacGregor failed to produce the 80 [[Spanish dollar|silver dollars]] per man on arrival promised by his recruiters. MacGregor persuaded South American merchants in Haiti to support him with funds, weapons and ammunition, but then procrastinated and gave the order to sail for the island of [[San Andrés (island)|San Andrés]], off the Spanish-controlled Isthmus of Panama, only on 10 March.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=196–198}} Going first to Jamaica to arrange accommodation for Josefa and Gregorio, MacGregor was almost arrested there on charges of gun-running. He joined his troops on San Andrés on 4 April. The delay had led to renewed dissension in the ranks that the stand-in commander Colonel William Rafter had difficulty containing. MacGregor restored morale by announcing that they would set out to attack [[Portobelo, Colón|Porto Bello]] on the New Granadian mainland the following day.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=198–200}}

[[File:Batería de Santiago, Portobelo - Flickr - andrea1victoria (2).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Part of the fort at Porto Bello, Panama, where MacGregor abandoned his troops led by Colonel William Rafter in April 1819|alt=Battlements and an old cannon, overlooking a harbour.]]
Colonel Rafter disembarked with 200 men near Porto Bello on 9 April, outflanked a roughly equal force of Spanish defenders during the night, and marched into Porto Bello without a fight on 10 April. MacGregor, watching from one of the ships with Woodbine—to whom he had given the rank of colonel—quickly came ashore when he sighted Rafter's signal of victory, and, as usual, issued a flowery proclamation: "Soldiers! Our first conquest has been glorious, it has opened the road to future and additional fame."{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=200–202}} Rafter urged MacGregor to march on [[Panama City]], but MacGregor did not make much in the way of plans to continue the campaign. He devoted most of his attention to the particulars of a new [[chivalric order]] of his design, the emblem of which would be a Green Cross. The troops became mutinous again after more promised money failed to materialise—MacGregor eventually paid each man $20, but this did little to restore discipline.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=202–208}}

The lack of patrolling by MacGregor's troops allowed the Spanish to march straight into Porto Bello early on 30 April 1819. MacGregor was still in bed when the Spaniards found his riflemen drilling in the main square and opened fire. Awoken by the noise, MacGregor threw his bed and blankets from the window onto the beach below and jumped out after them, then attempted to paddle out to his ships on a log. He passed out and would probably have drowned had he not been picked up and brought aboard the ''Hero'' by one of his naval officers.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=204–208}} 

MacGregor would claim that on regaining consciousness he immediately raised his standard over the ''Hero'', then despatched runners to Rafter ordering him not to surrender. The version of events favoured by Sinclair is that Rafter received orders to this effect only after he had himself contacted MacGregor on the ''Hero''. Rafter, in the fort with 200 men, kept up a steady barrage and waited for his commander to fire on the royalists from the ships—but to the colonel's astonishment MacGregor instead ordered his fleet to turn about and made for the high seas.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=204–208}}{{#tag:ref|MacGregor had five ships—the ''Hero'' and the four others that had carried the troops from Britain.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|p=194}}|group="n"|name="fiveships"}} 

Abandoned, Colonel Rafter and the remnants of MacGregor's army had no choice but to surrender; most of the surviving officers and troops entered miserable existences in captivity.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=204–208}} Rafter was ultimately shot with 11 other officers for conspiring to escape.{{#tag:ref|Although it soon became public knowledge that MacGregor had suffered a humiliating defeat at Porto Bello, the full story of how he had abandoned his troops emerged only a year later with the publishing of a survivor's account in the press and of the book by William Rafter's brother Michael in June 1820. MacGregor responded in 1821 with a heavily embellished account in which he claimed to have been forced to withdraw after a Latin American officer betrayed him and William Rafter let him down.{{sfn|Sinclair|2004|pp=208, 331}}|group="n"|name="mahary"}}