Pitt’s father, Thomas “Diamond” Pitt, had worked for the East India Company in Calcutta and had come into the possession of an extremely valuable 410 carat diamond, “The Regent”. It weighed close to four ounces and made Pitt a hefty sum of £135,000. In 1732, using his inheritance from the diamond, William, then age 37, founded a wood cutting settlement on the Miskito Coast. His fortunes further improved, when he rescued a beautiful Spanish noblewoman from a shipwreck. They married and her connections to influential businessmen and politicians in Tegucigalpa allowed Pitt to start a lucrative smuggling business. The colony thrived on smuggling and on the export of hardwoods, turtle shell, plant medicines, sugar and sarsaparilla.

A census taken in 1769 showed the town to have 200 settlers of white or mixed origin, 600 black slaves and around 3,000 Mosquito Indians. The town was twice the size of the other two towns of importance on the coast, Trujillo and Puerto Caballos, and boasted two shipyards and 12 lumber mills. That year alone over 800,000 board feet of mahogany, 10,000 pounds of turtle shell, and 200,000 pounds of sarsaparilla were exported to London and New York. All of this illegal commerce came to the attention of King Charles of Spain who ordered the trespassers to be expelled.

The colony thrived on smuggling and on the export of hardwoods

On April 13,1781, Galvez, accompanied by 800 soldiers from Roatan and 600 from Trujillo sailed for Black River. The area was mostly abandoned as the British and their Miskito allies had left to assist a young captain, Horatio Nelson, in his disastrous mission to invade Nicaragua. The meager force of 20 soldiers manning the defenses of Fort Dalling fled into the jungle.

Galvez knew that the British would return, and waited for them. Upon hearing of the loss of Black River, the Governor of Jamaica sent a 500 man relief force of Jamaican Rangers. They joined up with members of the Roatan and Black River Volunteer Militia, led by Captains Richard Hoare and James Ferral of Roatan, and their Miskito mercenaries. A force of 1,300 men arrived back in Black River to find the Spanish forces depleted with 400 men dead to tropical disease, snake bites, and alligators. The Spanish were soon defeated in a rout, losing 120 men to Miskito sniper archers. The last 23 officers and 715 men surrendered giving up ships, 33 cannons, and three Royal Standards. The men were shipped back to Omoa, under oath not to take up arms again against the British, and the town returned to normal commerce.

In 1786, Britain and Spain signed the Convention of London where Britain relinquished its control over the Miskito Coast in exchange for rights to settle Belize. 2,650 British settlers left Black River for Belize and Jamaica. The town was formally handed over to the Spanish by William Pitt’s grandson, William Pitt Lawrie.

The town of Black River boasted some fine houses and hence the Spaniards renamed it Palacios (Palaces) and 240 settlers arrived from the Canary Islands to re-colonize the town. The Spanish forbade any trading with the Miskitos, and this, combined with the new colonists total lack of knowledge of agriculture, caused the town to fail completely.

The final nail in the coffin came on the dawn hours of September 3, 1800, when the Miskito general Perquin Tempest silently paddled down the river by canoe accompanied by 200 warriors. The Miskitos killed every Spaniard they could find and only 80 survivors managed to flee to Trujillo, leaving the community abandoned for the next century.

The pirate became infuriated when he discovered that the two Spanish boats anchored in the bay, which he presumed to be loaded with valuable indigo, were in fact empty. The cruel Van Hoorn murdered the entire garrison of the fort, as well as most of the Trujillo’s population. He didn’t stop there and burned Trujillo to the ground.

After this latest outrage, the Spanish deemed the town indefensible against foreign attacks and abandoned it. The northeast coast of Honduras became virtually abandoned by the Spanish crown. The Spanish would not return to this part of Honduras for almost a hundred years.

Without troublesome Spanish interference, the British, Dutch, and French , solidified their settlements and trading posts on the Bay Islands and along the Miskito shore all the way to what is today Costa Rica. The British took advantage and established two fully equipped military forts. One was at Roatan’s Old Port Royal, improved by stones taken from fort in Trujillo. The other one was built at a prosperous sugar cane and mahogany logging town known as the Black River Settlement, 80 miles east of Trujillo.

The soldiers had little to do except to go hunting and fishing, as can be evinced from a menu from the 3rd Buff’s regimental dinner in Black River in 1770. On the menu were: calipash (a turtle delicacy), warree or wild pig steaks, broiled Indian rabbit, armadillo curry, barbaqued monkey; turtle soup, roasted antelope, giant mullet, smoked peccary, parrot, and stewed hicatee (a type of river turtle).

Soon the pirate’s idyllic lifestyle would come to an end. In 1779, with the American war of independence raging and all available British troops sent to fight in that campaign, the Spanish decided that the weakened British were worth attacking. They set out to expel the pirates from the Bay Islands and Miskito bases once and for all.

An army of 1600 men, including 200 battle hardened storm troopers assembled in Guatemala City under the command of the governor of Guatemala and Honduras, 57 year old Matias de Galvez. On December 17,1782 the expeditionary force began their long march to Trujillo.

British, Dutch, and French , solidified their settlements and trading posts on the Bay Islands

They reached Olanchito by February the following year and took the old Indian trail known as La Culebrina- the little snake, over the mountains. Reaching the Bay of Trujillo, they spent three days resting up in a place still known as Campamento, before attacking the town. Trujillo was empty as the small British army contingent there had prudently fled to Roatan upon hearing of the Spaniards approach.

The British sailed north and joined the small garrison of sixty soldiers under the command of Colonel Dalrymple at Old Port Royal. Here they awaited the Spanish attack.

It was not long in coming. The Spanish formally reoccupied Trujillo for the first time in 99 years. They secured the town’s defenses by manning the fort with 1,000 men. The remaining 600 men set sail for Roatan on March 15,1783 in three frigates: Santa Matilde, Antiope and Santa Cecilla.

Despite being outnumbered by eight men to one, Dalrymple initially vowed to fight to the death. However after a two day cannon bombardment that had reduced his fort to rubble and knocked out his only cannons, he was given the ultimatum of Deguello (no quarter) by Galvez and Dalrymple surrendered on March 18. The Spaniards spread out all over Roatan capturing runaway slaves, destroying farms, crops and torching any homes they found. In total some 500 dwellings were raised to the ground.

On March 21, 1783 the 81 surviving British soldiers and 135 settlers, were transported to Havana, Cuba as prisoners of war. Their boats, livestock, weapons, tools and furniture were shipped back to Trujillo as prizes of war. The 300 captured slaves were auctioned off in Havana.

The total cost of the invasion of Roatan was minimal. The Spanish had two men killed and four wounded, and the British suffered two dead and two wounded.

Galvez next turned his attention to “the tiny thorn in the foot of the Spanish empire,” the Black River settlement. That would prove to be a much harder nut to crack.