A Voyage Round the World

This transaction brought us down to the beginning of September, and our people by this time were so far recovered of the scurvy, that there was little danger of burying any more at present; and therefore I shall now sum up the total of our loss since our departure from England, the better to convey some idea of our past sufferings, and of our present strength. We had buried on board the Centurion, since our leaving St. Helens, two hundred and ninety-two, and had now remaining on board two hundred and fourteen. This will doubtless appear a most extraordinary mortality: but yet on board the Gloucester it had been much greater, for out of a much smaller crew than ours they had lost the same number, and had only eighty-two remaining alive. It might be expected that on board the Tryal the slaughter would have been the most terrible, as her decks were almost constantly knee-deep in water; but it happened otherwise, for she escaped more favourably than the rest, since she only buried forty-two, and had now thirty-nine remaining alive. The havock of this disease had fallen still severer on the invalids and marines than on the sailors; for on board the Centurion, out of fifty invalids and seventy-nine marines, there remained only four invalids, including officers, and eleven marines: and on board the Gloucester every invalid perished, and out of forty-eight marines only two escaped. From this account it appears that the three ships together departed from England with nine hundred and sixty-one men on board, of whom six hundred and twenty-six were dead before this time; so that the whole of our remaining crews, which were now to be distributed amongst three ships, amounted to no more than three hundred and thirty-five men and boys: a number greatly insufficient for the manning the Centurion alone, and barely capable of navigating all the three, with the utmost exertion of their strength and vigour. This prodigious reduction of our men was still the more terrifying as we were hitherto uncertain of the fate of Pizarro's squadron, and had reason to suppose that some part of it at least had got round into these seas. Indeed, we were satisfied from our own experience that they must have suffered greatly in their passage; but then every port in the South Seas was open to them, and the whole power of Chili and Peru would doubtless be united in refreshing and refitting them, and recruiting the numbers they had lost. Besides, we had some obscure knowledge of a force to be sent out from Callao; and, however contemptible the ships and sailors of this part of the world may have been generally esteemed, it was scarcely possible for anything bearing the name of a ship of force to be feebler or less considerable than ourselves. And had there been nothing to be apprehended from the naval power of the Spaniards in this part of the world, yet our enfeebled condition would nevertheless give us the greatest uneasiness, as we were incapable of attempting any of their considerable places; for the risquing of twenty men, weak as we then were, was risquing the safety of the whole: so that we conceived we should be necessitated to content ourselves with what few prizes we could pick up at sea before we were discovered; after which we should in all probability be obliged to depart with precipitation, and esteem ourselves fortunate to regain our native country, leaving our enemies to triumph on the inconsiderable mischief they had received from a squadron whose equipment had filled them with such dreadful apprehensions. This was a subject on which we had reason to imagine the Spanish ostentation would remarkably exert itself, though the causes of our disappointment and their security were neither to be sought for in their valour nor our misconduct.

Such were the desponding reflections which at that time arose on the review and comparison of our remaining strength with our original numbers. Indeed, our fears were far from being groundless, or disproportioned to our feeble and almost desperate situation; for though the final event proved more honourable than we had foreboded, yet the intermediate calamities did likewise greatly surpass our most gloomy apprehensions, and could they have been predicted to us at this island of Juan Fernandes, they would doubtless have appeared insurmountable. But to return to our narration.

In the beginning of September, as has been already mentioned, our men were tolerably well recovered; and now, the season for navigation in this climate drawing near, we exerted ourselves in getting our ships in readiness for the sea. We converted the fore-mast of the victualler into a main-mast for the Tryal sloop; and still flattering ourselves with the possibility of the arrival of some other ships of our squadron, we intended to leave the main-mast of the victualler to make a mizen-mast for the Wager. Thus all hands being employed in forwarding our departure, we, on the 8th, about eleven in the morning, espied a sail to the N.E. which continued to approach us till her courses appeared even with the horizon. Whilst she advanced, we had great hopes she might prove one of our own squadron; but as at length she steered away to the eastward without haling in for the island, we thence concluded she must be a Spaniard. And now great disputes were set on foot about the possibility of her having discovered our tents on shore, some of us strongly insisting that she had doubtless been near enough to have perceived something that had given her a jealousy of an enemy, which had occasioned her standing to the eastward without haling in. However, leaving these contests to be settled afterwards, it was resolved to pursue her, and, the Centurion being in the greatest forwardness, we immediately got all our hands on board, set up our rigging, bent our sails, and by five in the afternoon got under sail. We had at this time very little wind, so that all the boats were employed to tow us out of the bay; and even what wind there was, lasted only long enough to give us an offing of two or three leagues, when it flatted to a calm. The night coming on, we lost sight of the chace, and were extremely impatient for the return of daylight, in hopes to find that she had been becalmed as well as we, though I must confess that her greater distance from the land was a reasonable ground for suspecting the contrary, as we indeed found in the morning to our great mortification, for though the weather continued perfectly clear, we had no sight of the ship from the mast-head. But as we were now satisfied that it was an enemy, and the first we had seen in these seas, we resolved not to give over the search lightly; and, a small breeze springing up from the W.N.W., we got up our top-gallant masts and yards, set all the sails, and steered to the S.E. in hopes of retrieving our chace, which we imagined to be bound to Valparaiso. We continued on this course all that day and the next, and then, not getting sight of our chace, we gave over the pursuit, conceiving that by that time she must, in all probability, have reached her port. Being therefore determined to return to Juan Fernandes, we haled up to the S.W. with that view, having but very little wind till the 12th, when, at three in the morning, there sprung up a fresh gale from the W.S.W. which obliged us to tack and stand to the N.W. At daybreak we were agreeably surprized with the sight of a sail on our weather-bow, between four and five leagues distant. We immediately crouded all the sail we could, and stood after her, and soon perceived it not to be the same ship we originally gave chace to. She at first bore down upon us, shewing Spanish colours, and making a signal as to her consort; but observing that we did not answer her signal, she instantly loofed close to the wind, and stood to the southward. Our people were now all in spirits, and put the ship about with great briskness; and as the chace appeared to be a large ship, and had mistaken us for her consort, we conceived that she was a man-of-war, and probably one of Pizarro's squadron. This induced the commodore to order all the officers' cabins to be knocked down and thrown overboard, with several casks of water and provisions which stood between the guns, so that we had soon a clear ship, ready for an engagement. About nine o'clock we had thick hazy weather and a shower of rain, during which we lost sight of the chace; and we were apprehensive, if this dark weather should continue, that by going upon the other tack, or by some other artifice, she might escape us; but it clearing up in less than an hour, we found that we had both weathered and fore-reached upon her considerably, and were then near enough to discover that she was only a merchantman, without so much as a single tier of guns. About half an hour after twelve, being got within a reasonable distance of her, we fired four shot amongst her rigging; on which they lowered their top-sails, and bore down to us, but in very great confusion, their top-gallant sails and stay-sails all fluttering in the winds: this was owing to their having let run their sheets and halyards just as we fired at them, after which not a man amongst them had courage enough to venture aloft (for there the shot had passed but just before) to take them in. As soon as the vessel came within hale of us, the commodore ordered them to bring-to under his lee quarter, and then hoisted out the boat, and sent Mr. Saumarez, his first lieutenant, to take possession of the prize, with directions to send all the prisoners on board the Centurion, but first the officers and passengers. When Mr. Saumarez came on board them, they received him at the side with the strongest tokens of the most abject submission, for they were all of them (especially the passengers, who were twenty-five in number) extremely terrified, and under the greatest apprehensions of meeting with very severe and cruel usage; but the lieutenant endeavoured, with great courtesy, to dissipate their fright, assuring them that their fears were altogether groundless, and that they would find a generous enemy in the commodore, who was not less remarkable for his lenity and humanity than for his resolution and courage. The prisoners, who were first sent on board the Centurion, informed us that our prize was called Neustra Senora del Monte Carmelo, and was commanded by Don Manuel Zamorra. Her cargo consisted chiefly of sugar, and great quantities of blue cloth made in the province of Quito, somewhat resembling our English coarse broadcloths, but inferior to them. They had besides several bales of a coarser sort of cloth, of different colours, somewhat like Colchester bays, called by them Pannia da Tierra, with a few bales of cotton, and some tobacco, which, though strong, was not ill flavoured. These were the principal goods on board her; but we found besides what was to us much more valuable than the rest of the cargoe: this was some trunks of wrought plate, and twenty-three serons of dollars, each weighing upwards of 200 lb. averdupois. The ship's burthen was about four hundred and fifty tons; she had fifty-three sailors on board, both whites and blacks; she came from Callao, and had been twenty-seven days at sea before she fell into our hands. She was bound to the port of Valparaiso, in the kingdom of Chili, and proposed to have returned from thence loaded with corn and Chili wine, some gold, dried beef, and small cordage, which at Callao they convert into larger rope. Our prize had been built upwards of thirty years; yet, as they lie in harbour all the winter months, and the climate is favourable, they esteemed it no very great age. Her rigging was very indifferent, as were likewise her sails, which were made of cotton. She had only three four-pounders, which were altogether unserviceable, their carriages being scarcely able to support them: and there were no small arms on board, except a few pistols belonging to the passengers. The prisoners informed us that they left Callao in company with two other ships, whom they had parted with some days before, and that at first they conceived us to be one of their company; and by the description we gave them of the ship we had chased from Juan Fernandes, they assured us she was of their number, but that the coming in sight of that island was directly repugnant to the merchants' instructions, who had expressly forbid it, as knowing that if any English squadron was in those seas, the island of Fernandes was most probably the place of their rendezvous.

After this short account of the ship and her cargoe, it is necessary that I should relate the important intelligence which we met with on board her, partly from the information of the prisoners, and partly from the letters and papers which fell into our hands. We here first learnt with certainty the force and destination of that squadron which cruized off the Maderas at our arrival there, and afterwards chased the Pearl in our passage to Port St. Julian. This we now knew was a squadron composed of five large Spanish ships, commanded by Admiral Pizarro, and purposely fitted out to traverse our designs, as hath been already more amply related in the third chapter of the first book. We had at the same time, too, the satisfaction to find that Pizarro, after his utmost endeavours to gain his passage into these seas, had been forced back again into the river of Plate, with the loss of two of his largest ships. And besides this disappointment of Pizarro, which, considering our great debility, was no unacceptable intelligence, we farther learnt, that though an embargo had been laid upon all shipping in these seas by the Viceroy of Peru, in the month of May preceding, on a supposition that about that time we might arrive upon the coast, yet it now no longer subsisted: for on the account sent overland by Pizarro of his own distresses, part of which they knew we must have encountered, as we were at sea during the same time, and on their having no news of us in eight months after we were known to set sail from St. Catherine's, they were fully satisfied that we were either shipwrecked, or had perished at sea, or, at least, had been obliged to put back again, as it was conceived impossible for any ships to continue at sea during so long an interval: and therefore, on the application of the merchants, and the firm persuasion of our having miscarried, the embargo had been lately taken off.

This last article made us flatter ourselves that, as the enemy was still a stranger to our having got round Cape Horn, and the navigation of these seas was restored, we might meet with some valuable captures, and might thereby indemnify ourselves for the incapacity we were under of attempting any of their considerable settlements on shore. And thus much we were certain of, from the information of our prisoners, that, whatever our success might be, as to the prizes we might light on, we had nothing to fear, weak as we were, from the Spanish force in this part of the world, though we discovered that we had been in most imminent peril from the enemy when we least apprehended it, and when our other distresses were at the greatest height; for we learnt, from the letters on board, that Pizarro, in the express he dispatched to the Viceroy of Peru, after his return to the river of Plate, had intimated to him that it was possible some part at least of the English squadron might get round; but that, as he was certain from his own experience that if they did arrive in those seas it must be in a very weak and defenceless condition, he advised the viceroy, in order to be secure at all events, to send what ships of war he had to the southward, where, in all probability, they would intercept us singly, before we had an opportunity of touching at any port for refreshment; in which case he doubted not but we should prove an easy conquest. The Viceroy of Peru approved of this advice, and as he had already fitted out four ships of force from Callao – one of fifty guns, two of forty guns, and one of twenty-four guns, which were intended to join Pizarro when he arrived on the coast of Chili – the viceroy now stationed three of these off the Port of Conception, and one of them at the island of Fernandes, where they continued cruizing for us till the 6th of June, and then not seeing anything of us, and conceiving it to be impossible that we could have kept the seas so long, they quitted their cruise and returned to Callao, fully persuaded that we had either perished, or at least had been driven back. Now, as the time of their quitting their stations was but a few days before our arrival at the island of Fernandes, it is evident that had we made that island on our first search for it, without haling in for the main to secure our easting (a circumstance which at that time we considered as very unfortunate to us, on account of the numbers which we lost by our longer continuance at sea) – had we, I say, made the island on the 28th of May, when we first expected to see it, and were in reality very near it, we had doubtless fallen in with some part of the Spanish squadron; and in the distressed condition we were then in, the meeting with a healthy, well-provided enemy was an incident that could not but have been perplexing, and might perhaps have proved fatal, not only to us, but to the Tryal, the Gloucester, and the Anna pink, who separately joined us, and who were each of them less capable than we were of making any considerable resistance. I shall only add, that these Spanish ships sent out to intercept us had been greatly shattered by a storm during their cruise, and that, after their arrival at Callao, they had been laid up. And our prisoners assured us that whenever intelligence was received at Lima of our being in these seas, it would be at least two months before this armament could be again fitted out.

The whole of this intelligence was as favourable as we, in our reduced circumstances, could wish for. And now we were no longer at a loss as to the broken jars, ashes, and fishbones which we had observed at our first landing at Juan Fernandes, these things being doubtless the relicts of the cruisers stationed off that port. Having thus satisfied ourselves in the material articles of our inquiry, and having gotten on board the Centurion most of the prisoners, and all the silver, we, at eight in the same evening, made sail to the northward, in company with our prize, and at six the next morning discovered the island of Fernandes, where, the following day, both we and our prize came to an anchor.

And here I cannot omit one remarkable incident which occurred when the prize and her crew came into the bay where the rest of the squadron lay. The Spaniards in the Carmelo had been sufficiently informed of the distresses we had gone through, and were greatly surprized that we had ever surmounted them; but when they saw the Tryal sloop at anchor, they were still more astonished that after all our fatigues we had the industry (besides refitting our other ships) to complete such a vessel in so short time, they taking it for granted that we had built her upon the spot: nor was it without great difficulty they were at last prevailed upon to believe that she came from England with the rest of the squadron, they long insisting that it was impossible such a bauble as that could pass round Cape Horn, when the best ships of Spain were obliged to put back.

By the time we arrived at Juan Fernandes, the letters found on board our prize were more minutely examined: and, it appearing from them, and from the accounts of our prisoners, that several other merchantmen were bound from Callao to Valparaiso, Mr. Anson dispatched the Tryal sloop the very next morning to cruise off the last-mentioned port, reinforcing her with ten hands from on board his own ship. Mr. Anson likewise resolved, on the intelligence recited above, to separate the ships under his command, and employ them in distinct cruises, as he thought that by this means we should not only increase our chance for prizes, but that we should likewise run a less risque of alarming the coast, and of being discovered. And now the spirits of our people being greatly raised, and their despondency dissipated by this earnest of success, they forgot all their past distresses, and resumed their wonted alacrity, and laboured indefatigably in completing our water, receiving our lumber, and in preparing to take our farewell of the island: but as these occupations took us up four or five days with all our industry, the commodore, in that interval, directed that the guns belonging to the Anna pink, being four six-pounders, four four-pounders, and two swivels, should be mounted on board the Carmelo, our prize: and having sent on board the Gloucester six passengers and twenty-three seamen to assist in navigating the ship, he directed Captain Mitchel to leave the island as soon as possible, the service demanding the utmost dispatch, ordering him to proceed to the latitude of five degrees south, and there to cruise off the highland of Paita, at such a distance from shore as should prevent his being discovered. On this station he was to continue till he should be joined by the commodore, which would be whenever it should be known that the viceroy had fitted out the ships at Callao, or on Mr. Anson's receiving any other intelligence that should make it necessary to unite our strength. These orders being delivered to the captain of the Gloucester, and all our business compleated, we, on the Saturday following, being the 19th of September, weighed our anchor, in company with our prize, and got out of the bay, taking our last leave of the island of Juan Fernandes, and steering to the eastward, with an intention of joining the Tryal sloop in her station off Valparaiso.

CHAPTER V

OUR CRUISE FROM THE TIME OF OUR LEAVING JUAN

FERNANDES TO THE TAKING THE TOWN OF PAITA

Although the Centurion, with her prize, the Carmelo, weighed from the bay of Juan Fernandes on the 19th of September, leaving the Gloucester at anchor behind her, yet, by the irregularity and fluctuation of the winds in the offing, it was the 22d of the same month, in the evening, before we lost sight of the island: after which we continued our course to the eastward, in order to reach our station, and to join the Tryal off Valparaiso. The next night the weather proved squally, and we split our main top-sail, which we handed for the present, but got it repaired, and set it again the next morning. In the evening, a little before sunset, we saw two sail to the eastward; on which our prize stood directly from us, to avoid giving any suspicion of our being cruisers, whilst we, in the meantime, made ourselves ready for an engagement, and steered with all our canvas towards the two ships we had discovered. We soon perceived that one of these, which had the appearance of being a very stout ship, made directly for us, whilst the other kept at a great distance. By seven o'clock we were within pistol-shot of the nearest, and had a broadside ready to pour into her, the gunners having their matches in their hands, and only waiting for orders to fire; but, as we knew it was now impossible for her to escape us, Mr. Anson, before he permitted us to fire, ordered the master to hale the ship in Spanish; on which the commanding officer on board her, who proved to be Mr. Hughes, lieutenant of the Tryal, answered us in English, and informed us that she was a prize taken by the Tryal a few days before, and that the other sail at a distance was the Tryal herself disabled in her masts. We were soon after joined by the Tryal, and Captain Saunders, her commander, came on board the Centurion. He acquainted the commodore that he had taken this ship the 18th instant; that she was a prime sailor, and had cost him thirty-six hours' chace before he could come up with her; that for some time he gained so little upon her that he began to despair of taking her; and the Spaniards, though alarmed at first with seeing nothing but a cloud of sail in pursuit of them, the Tryal's hull being so low in the water that no part of it appeared, yet knowing the goodness of their ship, and finding how little the Tryal neared them, they at length laid aside their fears, and recommending themselves to the blessed Virgin for protection, began to think themselves secure. Indeed their success was very near doing honour to their Ave Marias, for, altering their course in the night, and shutting up their windows to prevent any of their lights from being seen, they had some chance of escaping; but a small crevice in one of the shutters rendered all their invocations ineffectual, for through this crevice the people on board the Tryal perceived a light, which they chased till they arrived within gunshot, and then Captain Saunders alarmed them unexpectedly with a broadside, when they flattered themselves they were got out of his reach. However, for some time after they still kept the same sail abroad, and it was not observed that this first salute had made any impression on them; but, just as the Tryal was preparing to repeat her broadside, the Spaniards crept from their holes, lowered their sails, and submitted without any opposition. She was one of the largest merchantmen employed in those seas, being about six hundred tuns burthen, and was called the Arranzazu. She was bound from Callao to Valparaiso, and had much the same cargo with the Carmelo we had taken before, except that her silver amounted only to about £5000 sterling.