But in the great magnanimity of his soul he declared that he would allow Morgan to sail away freely, provided he would deliver all the booty he had captured, together with the prisoners and slaves, and promise to go home and abandon buccaneering forever.

In case he declined these terms, the admiral declared he would come up the channel in boats filled with his soldiers and put every pirate to the sword.
When Morgan received this letter, he called his men together in the public square of the town, and asked them what they would do, and when these fellows heard that they were asked to give up all their booty, they unanimously voted that they would perish rather than do such an unmanly thing as that.

So it was agreed that they would fight themselves out of the lake of Maracaibo, or stay there, dead or alive, as the case might be..