since he believed they had no ships. Searle immediately ordered to his men to seize the galleon, but they would not leave their wine or, more likely, were unable to obey. De Peralta, alarmed when his men failed to return and suspicious of the barque moored nearby, weighed anchor with some difficulty and fled into the night, being out of sight by daybreak. When the main body of buccaneers eventually learned of this missed opportunity a few days later, they were outraged. Esquemeling, even writing several years after the event, scornfully related how, when the watering party had been brought before Searle, the old rover “had been more inclined to sit drinking and sporting with a group of Spanish women he had taken prisoner, than to go at once in pursuit of the treasure ship.” Searle was bitterly reproached by Morgan and never regained his favour. Years later, Captain de Peralta was captured by the English privateer, William Dampier, in the Pacific and told the story of his narrow escape from Searle with much relish. Death In later years, Robert Searle relocated to Honduras, where William Dampier wrote that he was killed in a duel with an Indigenous logwood cutter. Thus the Jamaican buccaneer met his death near a small sandy islet at the northern end of the Gulf of Campeache (in the Laguna de Términos), known to his brother pirates as “Serles's Key.” At the North-end, and about the middle of the East Lagune, there is another small Creek like that which comes out against One-Bush-Key, but less and shallower, which dischargeth it self into Laguna Termina, against a small sandy Key, called by the English Serles's Key, from one Captain Serles, who first careen’d his vessel here, and was afterwards killed in the Western Lagune, by one of his company as they were cutting Logwood together. References Sources Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and the West Indies, 1661–68, 789, Minutes of the Council of Jamaica, E. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and the West Indies, 1661–68, 1082 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and the West Indies, 1661–68, 1125 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies 1827 (?), King Charles II to Sir T. Modyford, 15 June 1664 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies 842, Sir T. Modyford to Lord Arlington, 12 April 1665 Calendar of