_History of the Spanish Squadron commanded by Don Joseph Pizarro._
The squadron fitted out by the court of Spain, to attend our motions,
and traverse our projects, we supposed to have been the ships seen
off Madeira. As this force was sent out particularly against our
expedition, I cannot but imagine that the following history of its
casualties, so far as has come to my knowledge, by intercepted letters
and other information, is an essential part of the present work. For
it will from hence appear, that we were the occasion of a considerable
part of the Spanish naval power being diverted from prosecuting the
ambitious views of that court in Europe; and whatever men and ships
were lost by the enemy in this undertaking, were lost in consequence
of the precautions they took to secure themselves against our
expedition.
This squadron, besides two ships bound for the West Indies, which did
not part company till after they left Madeira, was composed of the
following men-of-war, commanded by Don Joseph Pizarro. The Asia of 66
guns and 700 men, the admiral's ship; the Guipuscoa of 74 guns and 700
men; the Hermiona of 54 guns and 500 men; the Esperanza of 50 guns and
450 men; the St Estevan of 40 guns and 350 men; and a patache of 20
guns.
Over and above their complements of sailors and marines, these ships
had on board an old Spanish regiment of foot, intended to reinforce
the garrisons on the coast of the South-Sea. Having cruised some days
to leeward of Madeira, as formerly mentioned, they left that station
in the beginning of November, and steered for the Rio de la Plata,
where they arrived on the 5th of January O.S. and coming to anchor in
the bay of Maldonado, at the mouth of that river, their admiral sent
immediately to Buenos Ayres for a supply of provisions, having left
Spain with only four months provisions on board. While waiting this
supply, they received intelligence, by the treachery of the Portuguese
governor of St Catharines, of Mr Anson having arrived at that island
on the 21st December preceding, and that he was preparing to put to
sea again with the utmost expedition. Notwithstanding his superior
force, Pizarro had his reasons, and some say his orders, for avoiding
our squadron any where short of the South-Sea. He was, besides,
extremely desirous of getting round Cape Horn before us, imagining
that alone would effectually baffle all our designs; wherefore,
hearing that we were in his neighbourhood, and that we should be soon
ready to proceed for Cape Horn, he weighed anchor with his five large
ships, the Patache being disabled and condemned, and the men taken
out of her; and, after a stay of seventeen days only, got under sail
without his provisions, which arrived at Maldonado within a day or two
after his departure. Notwithstanding this precipitation, we put to sea
from St Catharines four days before he did from Maldonado; and at one
part of our passage to Cape Horn the two squadrons were so near, that
the Pearl, one of our ships, being separated from the rest, fell in
with the Spanish fleet, and, mistaking the Asia for the Centurion,
got within gun-shot of the Asia before the mistake was discovered, and
narrowly escaped being taken.
As it was the 22d January when the Spaniards weighed from Maldonado,
they could not expect to get into the latitude of Cape Horn before the
equinox; and, as they had reason to apprehend very tempestuous weather
in doubling it at that season, while the Spanish sailors, for the most
part accustomed to a fair-weather country, might be supposed averse
from so dangerous and fatiguing a navigation, the better to encourage
them, some part of their pay was advanced to them in European goods,
which they were to have leave to dispose of in the South-Seas, that
so the hopes of the great profits they were to make of their ventures,
might animate them in their duty, and render them less disposed
to repine at the labours, hardships, and perils they might in all
probability meet with, before their arrival on the coast of Peru.
Towards the latter end of February, Pizarro and his squadron got into
the latitude of Cape Horn, and then stood to the westwards in order
to double that southern promontory. But, in the night of the last of
February O.S. while turning to windward with this view, the Guipuscoa,
Hermiona, and Espranza were separated from the admiral. On the 6th
March following, the Guipuscoa was separated from the other two; and
next day, being that after we passed the Straits of Le Maire, there
came on a most furious storm at N.W. which, in spite of all their
efforts, drove the whole squadron to the eastward, and, after several
fruitless attempts, obliged them to bear away for the river of Plate.
Pizarro arrived there in the Asia about the middle of May, and was
followed a few days after by the Esperanza and Estevan. The Hermiona
was supposed to have foundered, as she was never more heard of; and
the Guipuscoa was run on shore and destroyed on the coast of Brazil.
The calamities of all kinds which this squadron underwent in their
unsuccessful attempt to double Cape Horn, can only be paralleled by
what we ourselves experienced in the same climate, when buffeted by
the same storms. There was indeed some diversity in our distresses,
rendering it difficult to decide whose situation was most worthy of
commiseration; for, to all the miseries and misfortunes we experienced
in common, as shattered rigging, leaky ships, and the fatigues and
despondency necessarily attendant on these disasters, there was
superadded on board our squadron the ravages of a most destructive
and incurable disease; and in the Spanish squadron the devastation of
famine.
It has been already observed, that this squadron left Spain with only
four months provisions on board, and even that, it is said, at short
allowance, either owing to the hurry of their outfit, or presuming
upon a supply at Buenos Ayres; so that, when their continuance at sea
was prolonged, by the storms they met with off Cape Horn, a month
or more beyond their expectation, they were reduced to such infinite
distress, that rats, when they could be caught, sold for four dollars
a-piece; and a sailor who died in one of the ships, had his death
concealed by his brother for some days, who lay all that time in
the hammock with the corpse, that he might receive the dead man's
allowance of provisions. In this dreadful situation, if their horrors
were capable of augmentation, they were alarmed by discovering
a conspiracy among the marines on board the Asia, who proposed
massacring the officers and whole crew, their sole motive for this
bloody resolution appearing to be the desire of relieving their
hunger, by appropriating the whole provisions in the ship to
themselves. This design was prevented, when just on the point of
execution, by means of one of their confessors, and three of the
ringleaders were immediately put to death. By the complicated
distresses of fatigue, sickness, and famine, the three ships that
escaped lost the greatest part of their men. The admiral's ship, the
Asia, arrived at Monte Video in the Rio Plata with only half her crew.
The Estevan, when she anchored in the bay of Barragan had also lost
half her men. The Esperanza was still more unfortunate, for of 450
hands she brought with her from Spain, only 58 remained alive. The
whole regiment of foot perished except sixty men. To give a more
distinct idea of what they underwent upon this occasion, I shall
present a short account of the fate of the Guipuscoa, extracted from a
letter written by Don Joseph Mindinuetta, her captain, to a person of
distinction at Lima, a copy of which fell into our hands when in the
South-Sea.
Having separated on the 6th March in a fog from the Hermiona and
Esperanza, being then, as I suppose, to the S.E. of States Land, and
plying to the westward, it blew a furious storm at N.W. the succeeding
night, which, at half past ten, split his main-sail, and obliged him
to bear away with his foresail. The ship now went ten knots an hour
with a prodigious sea, and often ran her gangway under water. He
likewise sprung his main-mast, and the ship made so much water that
she could not be freed by four pumps assisted by bailing. On the 9th
the wind became calm, but the sea continued so high that the ship, in
rolling, opened all her upper works and seams, and started the butt
ends of her planks, and the greatest part of her top-timbers, the
bolts being drawn by the violence of the roll. In this condition, with
additional disasters to the hull and rigging, they continued beating
westward to the 12th, when they were in lat. 60° S. and in great want
of provisions, numbers perishing daily by the fatigue of pumping, and
the survivors quite dispirited by labour, hunger, and the severity
of the weather, their decks being covered with snow above a foot in
depth. Finding the wind fixed in the west and blowing strong, and
their passage that way impossible, they resolved to bear away for the
Rio Plata. On the 22d they had to throw overboard all their upper-deck
guns and an anchor, and were obliged to take six turns of the cable
round the ship to prevent her from opening and falling to pieces. On
the 4th of April, in calm weather, but with a very heavy sea, the
ship rolled so much that her main-mast came by the board, and was soon
after followed by the fore and mizen masts, after which they had
to cut away the boltsprit, to diminish, if possible, the leakage
forwards. By this time two hundred and fifty of the men had perished
by hunger and fatigue. Those who were capable of working at the pumps,
at which every officer took his turn without exception, were only
allowed an ounce and a half of biscuit daily; while those who were
weak and sickly, so that they could not assist in this necessary
labour, had no more than one ounce of wheat. It was common for the men
to fall down dead at the pumps, and all they could muster for duty,
including the officers, was from eighty to an hundred men.
The S.W. wind blew so fresh for some days after they lost their masts,
that they could not set up jury-masts; so that they were obliged to
drive like a wreck, between the latitude of 32° and 38° S. till the
24th of April, when they made the coast of Brazil at Rio de Patas,
ten leagues to the southward of the island of St Catharines. They came
here to an anchor, the captain being very desirous of proceeding to St
Catharines, in order to save the hull of the ship, with her guns and
stores: But the crew instantly left off pumping, and all in one voice
cried out, _On shore! on shore!_ enraged at the hardships they had
suffered and the numbers they had lost, there being at this time
thirty dead bodies lying on the deck. Thus the captain was obliged to
run the ship directly to the land, where she parted and sunk five days
after, with all her stores and furniture; but the remainder of the
crew, whom hunger and fatigue had spared, to the number of four
hundred, got safe on shore.
From this account of the adventures and catastrophe of the Guiapuscoa,
we may form some conjecture of the manner in which the Hermiona was
lost, and of the distresses endured by the three remaining ships of
the squadron which got into the Rio Plata. These last being in great
want of masts, yards, rigging, and all kinds of naval stores,
and having no supply at Buenos Ayres or any of the neighbouring
settlements, Pizarro dispatched an advice-boat with a letter of credit
to Rio de Janeiro, to purchase what was wanting from the Portuguese.
He sent at the same time an express across the continent to St Jago de
Chili, to be thence forwarded to the viceroy of Peru, informing him
of the disasters that had befallen his squadron, and desiring a
remittance of two hundred thousand dollars from the royal chest at
Lima, to enable him to refit and victual his remaining ships, that he
might be again in condition to attempt the passage to the South-Sea
as soon as the season of the year should be more favourable. It is
mentioned by the Spaniards, as a most extraordinary circumstance,
that, though then the depth of winter, when the Cordilleras are
esteemed impassable on account of the snow, the Indian who was charged
with this express was only thirteen days on his journey from Buenos
Ayres to St Jago in Chili, though the distance is three hundred
Spanish leagues, near forty of which are among the snows and
precipices of the Cordilleras.
The return to this dispatch of Pizarro from the viceroy was by no
means favourable. Instead of two hundred thousand dollars, the sum
demanded, the viceroy remitted him only one hundred thousand, telling
him that it was with great difficulty he was able to procure even
that sum. But the inhabitants of Lima, who considered the presence
of Pizarro as absolutely necessary to their security, were much
discontented at this procedure, and did not scruple to assert, that
it was not the want of money, but the interested views of some of the
viceroy's confidants, that prevented Pizarro from getting the whole
sum.
The advice-boat sent to Rio Janeiro also executed her commission but
imperfectly; for, though she brought back a considerable quantity of
pitch, tar, and cordage, she could not procure either masts or yards;
and, as an additional misfortune, Pizarro was disappointed of some
masts he expected from Paraguay, as a carpenter whom he entrusted
with a large sum of money, and sent there to cut masts, instead of
prosecuting the business he was sent upon, married in the country,
and refused to return. However, by removing the masts of the Esperanza
into the Asia, and using what spare masts and yards they had on board,
they made a shift to refit the Asia and Estevan: And, in the October
following, Pizarro was prepared to put to sea with these two ships,
in order to attempt the passage round Cape Horn a second time; but, in
coming down the Rio Plata, the Estevan ran upon a shoal and beat off
her rudder, and Pizarro proceeded to sea in the Asia without her.
Having now the antarctic summer before him, and the winds favourable,
no doubt was made of his having a fortunate and speedy passage: But,
when off Cape Horn and going right before the wind, it being moderate
weather, though in a swelling sea, the ship rolled away her masts, by
some misconduct of the officer having the watch, and was a second time
obliged to put back in great distress to the Rio Plata.
As the Asia had suffered considerably in this second unfortunate
expedition, the Esperanza was now ordered to be refitted, the command
of her being given to Mindinuetta, who was formerly captain of the
Guipuscoa. In November 1742, he sailed from the Rio Plata for the
south, and arrived safe on the coast of Chili, where he was met by
his commodore, Pizarro, who passed over-land from Buenos Ayres. Great
animosities and contests took place between these two officers, owing
to the claim of Pizarro to command the Esperanza, which Mindinuetta
had brought round, and now refused to resign; insisting, as he had
come round the South Sea alone and under no superior, it was not now
in the power of Pizarro to resume the authority he had once parted
with. But, after a long and obstinate struggle, as the president of
Chili interposed and declared for Pizarro, Mindinuetta was obliged to
submit.
Pizarro had not yet completed the series of his misfortunes. When
he and Mindinuetta returned over-land, in 1745, from Chili to Buenos
Ayres, they found the Asia still at Monte Video, and resolved, if
possible, to carry her to Europe. With this view they refitted her in
the best manner they could, but had great difficulty in procuring
a sufficient number of hands to navigate her, as all the remaining
sailors of the squadron, then to be met with in the neighbourhood of
Buenos Ayres, did not amount to an hundred men. They endeavoured to
supply this defect, by pressing many of the inhabitants of Buenos
Ayres, and putting on board all the English prisoners then in their
custody, together with a number of Portuguese smugglers they had taken
at different times, and some of the Indians of the country. Among
these last there was a chief and ten of his followers, who had been
surprised by a party of Spanish soldiers about three months before.
The name of this chief was Orellana, and he belonged to a very
powerful tribe, which had committed great ravages in the neighbourhood
of Buenos Ayres. With this motley crew, all of them except the
European sailors averse from the voyage, Pizarro set sail from Monte
Video about the beginning of November 1745: and the native Spaniards,
being no strangers to the dissatisfaction of their forced men, treated
them, the English prisoners and the Indians, with great insolence and
barbarity, particularly the Indians; for it was common in the meanest
officers in the ship to beat them cruelly on the slightest pretence,
and often merely to shew their superiority.
Orellana and his followers, though in appearance sufficiently patient
and submissive, meditated a severe revenge for all these inhumanities.
As these Indians have great intercourse with Buenos Ayres in time of
peace, Orellana understood Spanish, and affected to converse with such
of the English prisoners as could speak that language, seeming very
desirous of being informed how many Englishmen there were on board,
and of having them pointed out to him. As he knew the English were as
much enemies to the Spaniards as he was, he had doubtless an intention
of disclosing his purposes to them, and making them partners in the
scheme he had projected for revenging his wrongs and recovering his
liberty; but, having sounded them at a distance, and not finding them
so precipitate and vindictive as he expected, he proceeded no farther
with them, but resolved to trust alone to the resolution of his ten
faithful followers, who readily engaged to observe his directions and
to execute his commands. Having agreed on the measures to be pursued,
they contrived to provide themselves with Dutch knives, sharp at the
point, which, being the common knives used in the ship, they procured
without difficulty. They also employed their leisure in secretly
cutting thongs from raw hides, of which there were great numbers on
board, and in fixing to each end of these thongs the double-headed
shot of the small quarter-deck guns; by which they formed most
mischievous weapons, in the use of which, by swinging round the head,
the Indians about Buenos Ayres are extremely expert, being trained to
it from their infancy. When these things were in good forwardness,
the execution of their scheme was perhaps precipitated by a particular
outrage committed upon Orellana, who was ordered aloft by one of the
officers, and being incapable of doing so, the officer, who was
a brutal fellow, beat him with such violence, under pretence of
disobedience, that he left him bleeding on the deck, and quite
stupified with wounds and bruises. This certainly increased his thirst
of revenge, so that within a day or two he and his followers began to
execute their desperate resolves in the following manner.
About nine in the evening, when many of the principal officers were
on the quarter-deck indulging in the freshness of the night air, the
forecastle being manned with its customary watch, Orellana and his
companions, having prepared their weapons, and thrown off their
trowsers and other cumbrous parts of their dress, came all together
on the quarter-deck, and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The
boatswain reprimanded them for their presumption, and ordered them
to be gone; on which Orellana spoke to his followers in their native
language, when four of them drew off, two towards each gangway, and
the chief and six remaining Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the
quarter-deck. When the detached Indians had taken possession of the
gangways, Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth, and bellowed
out the war-cry of the savages, said to be the harshest and most
terrifying of sounds. This hideous yell was the signal for beginning
the massacre; upon which all the Indians drew their knives and
brandished their prepared double-headed shot. The chief, and the six
who remained with him on the quarter-deck, fell immediately on the
Spaniards with whom they were intermingled, and in a very short space
laid forty of them at their feet, above twenty of whom were killed on
the spot, and the rest disabled.
In the beginning of the tumult, many of the officers rushed into the
great cabin, where they put out the lights and barricadoed the door;
while of the others, who had escaped the first fury of the Indians,
some endeavoured to escape along the gangways to the forecastle, where
the Indians, placed there on purpose, stabbed the greater part of them
as they attempted to pass, or forced them off the gangways into the
waste of the ship, which was filled with live cattle. Some threw
themselves voluntarily over the barricades into the waste, and thought
themselves fortunate to lie concealed among the cattle; but the
greatest part escaped up the main-shrouds, and took shelter in the
tops and rigging of the ship. Although the Indians only attacked
the quarter-deck, yet the watch in the forecastle, finding their
communication cut off, and terrified by a few of the wounded who had
been able to force their passage, and not knowing either who were
their enemies, or what were their numbers, they also gave all over for
lost, and in great confusion ran up into the rigging of the foremast
and boltsprit.
Thus these eleven Indians, with a resolution perhaps without example,
possessed themselves almost in an instant of the quarter-deck of a
ship mounting sixty-six guns, and manned by near five hundred hands,
and even continued in peaceable possession of this part for some time.
During a considerable space, the officers in the great cabin, among
whom were Pizarro and Mindinuetta, the crew between decks, and those
who had escaped into the tops and rigging, were merely anxious for
their own safety, and were incapable of forming any project for
suppressing the insurrection and recovering the possession of the
ship. The yells of the Indians, the groans of the wounded, and the
confused clamours of the crew, all heightened by the darkness of the
night, had at first greatly magnified the danger, and filled them with
imaginary terrors. The Spaniards were sensible of the dissatisfaction
of their impressed hands, and were conscious of their barbarity to
their prisoners, wherefore they concluded that the conspiracy was
general, and considered their own destruction as infallible; insomuch,
that some are said to have designed to leap into the sea, but were
prevented by their companions.
When the Indians had entirely cleared the quarter-deck, the tumult in
a great measure subsided; for those who had escaped were kept silent
by their fears, and the Indians were incapable of pursuing them.
Orellana, when master of the quarter-deck, broke open the arm-chest,
which had been ordered there a few days before, on a slight suspicion
of mutiny. He there expected to find cutlasses wherewith to arm
himself and his followers, who were all well skilled in the use of
that weapon, and with these it is imagined they proposed to have
forced the great cabin: But on opening the chest, there appeared
nothing but fire-arms, which to them were of no use. There were indeed
abundance of cutlasses in the chest, but they were hidden by the
fire-arms being laid uppermost. This was a sensible disappointment to
Orellana and his Indians. By this time Pizarro and his companions in
the great cabin had been able to communicate with those below in the
gun-room and between decks, by conversing aloud through the cabin
windows; by which means they learnt that the English prisoners, whom
they chiefly suspected, were all safe below, and had not participated
in the mutiny; and by other circumstances they were at last made
sensible that Orellana and his people only were concerned in it. Upon
this information, Pizarro and the officers resolved to attack them on
the quarter-deck, before any of the discontented on board had so far
recovered from their surprise as to reflect on the facility of
seizing the ship by joining with the Indians. With this view, Pizarro
collected what arms were in the cabin and distributed them to those
who were with him. There were no fire-arms except pistols, and
for these they had neither powder nor ball; but having now a
correspondence with the gun-room, they lowered a bucket from the cabin
window, into which the gunner put a quantity of pistol cartridges out
of one of the gun-room ports. Having thus procured ammunition, and
loaded their pistols, they partly opened the cabin door, and fired
several shots among the Indians on the quarter-deck, though at first
without effect. At last Mindinuetta had the good fortune to shoot
Orellana dead; on which his faithful companions, abandoning all
thoughts of farther resistance, instantly leaped into the sea, where
they all perished. Thus was this insurrection quelled, and possession
of the quarter-deck regained, after it had been fully two hours in the
power of this great and daring chief, and his small band of gallant
unhappy countrymen.
Having thus escaped from imminent peril, Pizarro continued his
voyage for Europe, and arrived safely on the coast of Gallicia in the
beginning of the year 1746, after an absence of between four and five
years, and having, by attendance on our expedition, diminished the
royal power of Spain by above three thousand of their prime sailors,
and by four considerable ships of war and a patache. For we have seen
that the Hermione foundered at sea, the Guipuscoa was stranded and
destroyed on the coast of Brazil, the St Estevan was condemned and
broken up in the Rio Plata, and the Esperanza, being left in the South
Sea, is doubtless by this time incapable of returning to Spain:
So that the Asia alone, with less than an hundred hands, may be
considered as all that remains of the squadron with which Pizarro put
forth to sea; and whoever considers the very large proportion which
this squadron bore to the whole navy of Spain, will no doubt confess
that, even if our undertaking had been attended with no other
advantages, than that of ruining so great a part of the naval force of
so dangerous an enemy, this alone would be a sufficient equivalent
for our equipment, and an incontestable proof of the service which the
nation has thence received. Having thus given a summary of Pizarro's
adventures, I return to the narrative of our own transactions.