Exquemelin wrote that Morgan's men undertook widespread torture in several of the towns they captured. According to Stephen Snelders, in his history of piracy, the Spanish reports of Morgan's raids do not refer to torture being practiced on the residents of Porto Bello or Gibraltar – although there are reliable reports that it was carried out in Panama. The historian Patrick Pringle observes that while torture seems cruel and ruthless to contemporary eyes, it was an accepted part of judicial interrogation in many European countries at the time. Morgan always fought with a commission from the governor of Jamaica. In doing so, he was acting as a reserve naval force for the English government in the defence of Jamaica. As the Spanish did not recognise privateering as a legal activity, even if a captain carried letters of marque, they considered Morgan to be a pirate, something he firmly rejected.