As far as I can tell, Manuel Ribeiro Pardal's "legendary career" was very short - barely a year (1670).
After Henry Morgan's raid on Porto Bello (Panama) in 1668 and Maracaibo (Venezuela) in 1669, the Spanish governor Pedro de Ulloa of Cartagena hired the Portuguese rover Manuel Ribeiro Pardal as a privateer (dated January 3, 1670, his name often given in Spanish sources as "Rivero") to track Morgan down and attack English interests in revenge.
Manuel Ribeiro Pardal's flagship, the San Pedro (nicknamed La Fama), apparently operating out of Santiago de Cuba, immediately set out, accompanied by four other ships. Aiming to raid Point Morant (Jamaica), he was blown off course and ended up raiding and destroying the fledgling English settlement on Little Cayman island in early 1670. Some other accompanying deeds (capturing some English and Dutch ships, at one point dispatched a group of English prisoners to the English governor of Jamaica to announce his victories).
After towing some prizes to Cartagena, Pardal was granted the ornate title of "Admiral of the Corsairs" by the grateful Spanish governor on March 23, 1670. Pardal was only one of several Spanish privateers hired, but ended up being designated their official "commander", allowed to fly the Spanish royal flag and take command of other privateers.
Pardal assembled a small Spanish privateer fleet and returned to Jamaica in the late Spring of 1670 and burned down Montego Bay (Jamaica). He raided the Jamaican coast a third time in early July 1670.
Pardal never found Henry Morgan. Although at one point, Pardal landed and nailed a poem on a tree on Point Negril in Jamaica challenging Morgan to come out and fight.
Pardal's exploits in 1670 did sufficiently torment the English in Jamaica. The English governor Thomas Moddyford gave Henry Morgan a commission (dated July 9, 1670) to defend Jamaica from Pardal (with his own ornate title of "Admiral of all warships in Port Royal").
However, Morgan decided not to bother with Pardal and instead use this valuable commission as a tool to plan another daring great raid on the Spanish mainland. So rather than patrolling the Jamaica coasts or tracking Pardal in Cuba, Morgan went off to Tortuga (north of Haiti) to gather intelligence on Spanish operations (and annoy the French). Morgan then moved to Ile a Vache (south of Haiti) in September, his designated assembly point for a gigantic raiding fleet.
It was another English captain, William Morris (on the Dolphin), an ostensible Morgan subordinate, patrolling around Cuba that intercepted Pardal in October 1670 (quite by accident - both were making for the same shelter from a storm, on the north coast). In the ensuing engagement, Morris boarded and captured the San Pedro, Pardal was killed in the engagement, and much of the crew massacred. The San Pedro - now renamed the Lamb - was towed to Morgan at Ile a Vache.
The 1670 Treaty of Madrid supposedly ended hostilities between Spain and England. Nonetheless, Morgan used the Jamaican commission as "Admiral of Port Royal" to assemble a giant fleet (some 38 privateer ships, both English and Dutch) at Ile a Vache and went on to sack Panama City (January, 1671).
