SPANISH PREPARATIONS--FATE OF PIZARRO'S SQUADRON.
DON JOSEPH PIZARRO.
When the squadron fitted out by the Court of Spain to attend our motions
had cruised for some days to the leeward of Madeira they left that
station in the beginning of November and steered for the River of Plate,
where they arrived the 5th of January, Old Style,* and coming to an
anchor in the bay of Maldonado at the mouth of that river their admiral,
Pizarro, sent immediately to Buenos Ayres for a supply of provisions for
they had departed from Spain with only four months' provisions on board.
While they lay here expecting this supply they received intelligence by
the treachery of the Portuguese Governor of St. Catherine's, of Mr.
Anson's having arrived at that island on the 21st of December preceding,
and of his preparing to put to sea again with the utmost expedition.
Pizarro, notwithstanding his superior force, had his reasons (and as some
say, his orders likewise) for avoiding our squadron anywhere short of the
South Seas. He was besides extremely desirous of getting round Cape Horn
before us, as he imagined that step alone would effectually baffle all
our designs, and therefore, on hearing that we were in his
neighbourhood** and that we should soon be ready to proceed for Cape Horn
he weighed anchor*** after a stay of seventeen days only and got under
sail without his provisions, which arrived at Maldonado within a day or
two after his departure. But notwithstanding the precipitation with which
he departed we put to sea from St. Catherine's four days before him and
in some part of our passage to Cape Horn the two squadrons were so near
together 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
had got within gunshot of Pizarro before she discovered her error, and
narrowly escaped being taken.
(*Note. The calendar as regulated by Julius Caesar in 46 BC assumed the
length of the solar year to be exactly 365 1/2 days, whereas it is eleven
minutes and a few with seconds less. By 1582 the error had become
considerable for the calendar was ten days behind the sun. Pope Gregory
XIII therefore ordained that ten days in that year should be dropped and
October 5th reckoned as October 15th. In order to avoid error in the
future it was settled that three of the leap years that occur in 400
years should be considered common years. So 1600 was and 2000 will be a
leap year but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. The New Style (NS.) was
adopted by Catholic countries. Protestant countries as a rule rejected it
and adhered to the old Style (OS.). The result was a considerable
confusion in dates as will be plain in the course of the book. The New
Style was adopted by England in 1751, when eleven days had to be omitted,
and September 3rd was reckoned as September 14th. Ignorant people thought
that they were defrauded of eleven days wages. "Give us back our eleven
days" became a popular cry against the Minister of the time. Russia and
other countries under the Greek Church still adhere to the old Style and
are now thirteen days behind.)
(**Note. Anson's squadron was then at St. Catherine's in Brazil. See
below, Chapter 3.)
(***Note. The Spanish squadron when it sailed from Maldonado consisted of
the following ships: "Asia", 66 guns, flag ship; "Guipuscoa", 74;
"Hermiona", 54; "Esperanza", 50; "St. Estevan", 40. The Asia was the only
ship that ever returned to Spain.)
Pizarro with his squadron having, towards the latter end of February, run
the length of Cape Horn, he then stood to the westward in order to double
it; but in the night of the last day of February, OS. while, with this
view, they were turned to windward the Guipuscoa, the Hermiona, and the
Esperanza were separated from the Admiral. On the 6th of March following
the Guipuscoa was separated from the other two, and on the 7th (being the
day after we had passed straits le Maire) there came on a most furious
storm at north-west, which, in despite of all their efforts, drove the
whole squadron to the eastward, and obliged them, after several fruitless
attempts, to bear away for the River of Plate, where Pizarro in the Asia
arrived about the middle of May and a few days after him the Esperanza
and the St. Estevan. The Hermiona was supposed to founder at sea for she
was never heard of more and the Guipuscoa was run ashore and sunk on the
coast of Brazil. The calamities of all kinds which this squadron
underwentin this unsuccessful navigation 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 which rendered
it difficult to decide whose situation was most worthy of commiseration;
for to all the misfortunes we had in common with each other as shattered
rigging, leaky ships, and the fatigues and despondency which necessarily
attend these disasters, there was superadded on board our squadron the
ravage of a most destructive and incurable disease* and on board the
Spanish squadron the devastation of famine.
(*Note. Scurvy.)
FAMINE.
For this squadron departed from Spain as has been already observed with
no more than four months' provision and even that, as it is said, at
short allowance only, so that, when by the storms they met with off Cape
Horn their continuance at sea was prolonged a month or more beyond their
expectation they were thereby reduced to such infinite distress that
rats, when they could be caught, were sold for four dollars a piece and a
sailor who died on board had his death concealed for some days by his
brother who during that time lay in the same hammock with the corpse only
to receive the dead man's allowance of provisions.
By the complicated distress of fatigue, sickness, and hunger, the three
ships which escaped lost the greatest part of their men. The Asia, their
Admiral's ship, arrived at Monte Video in the River of Plate with half
her crew only; the St. Estevan had lost in like manner half her hands
when she anchored in the Bay of Barragan. The Esperanza, a 50-gun ship,
was still more unfortunate, for of 450 hands which she brought from Spain
only 55 remained alive.
By removing the masts of the Esperanza into the Asia, and making use of
what spare masts and yards they had on board, they made a shift to refit
the Asia and the St. Estevan, and in the October following Pizarro was
preparing to put to sea with these two ships in order to attempt the
passage round Cape Horn a second time, but the St. Estevan, in coming
down the River of Plate, ran on a shoal and beat off her rudder, on
which, and other damages she received, she was condemned and broke up,
and Pizarro in the Asia proceeded to sea without her. Having now the
summer before him and the winds favourable, no doubt was made of his
having a fortunate and speedy passage; but being off Cape Horn and going
right before the wind in very moderate weather, though in a swelling sea
by some misconduct of the officer of the watch the ship rolled away her
masts and was a second time obliged to put back to the River of Plate in
great distress.
The Asia having considerably suffered in this second unfortunate
expedition the Esperanza which had been left behind at Monte Video, was
ordered to be refitted, the command of her being given to Mindinuetta,
who was captain of the Guipuscoa when she was lost. He, in the November
of the succeeding year that is, in November, 1742, sailed from the River
of Plate for the South Seas and arrived safe on the coast of Chile where
his Commodore, Pizarro, passing overland from Buenos Ayres met him. There
were great animosities and contests between these two gentlemen at their
meeting occasioned principally by the claim of Pizarro to command the
Esperanza, which Mindinuetta had brought round, for Mindinuetta refused
to deliver her up to him, insisting that as he came into the South Seas
alone, and under no superior, it was not now in the power of Pizarro to
resume that authority which he had once parted with. However the
President of Chile interposing, and declaring for Pizarro, Mindinuetta
after a long and obstinate struggle, was obliged to submit.
But Pizarro had not yet completed the series of his adventures, for when
he and Mindinuetta came back by land from Chile to Buenos Ayres in the
year 1745 they found at Monte Video the Asia, which near three years
before they had left there. This ship they resolved, if possible, to
carry to Europe, and with this view they refitted her in the best manner
they could; but their great difficulty was to procure a sufficient number
of hands to navigate her, for all the remaining sailors of the squadron
to be met with in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres did not amount to a
hundred men. They endeavoured to supply this defect by pressing many of
the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres, and putting on board besides all the
English prisoners then in their custody, together with a number of
Portuguese smugglers whom 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; 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 Spaniards extremely averse to the voyage) Pizarro set sail
from Monte Video, in the River of Plate about the beginning of November,
1745, and the native Spaniards, being no strangers to the dissatisfaction
of their forced men treated both the English prisoners and the Indians
with great insolence and barbarity, but more particularly the Indians;
for it was common for the meanest officers in the ship to beat them most
cruelly on the slightest pretences, and often times only to exert their
superiority. Orellana and his followers, though in appearance
sufficiently patient and submissive, meditated a severe revenge for all
these inhumanities. Having agreed on the measures necessary to be taken,
they first furnished themselves with Dutch knives sharp at the point,
which, being the common knives used in the ship, they found no difficulty
in procuring. Besides this they employed their leisure in secretly
cutting out 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; this, when swung round their heads
according to the practice of their country was a most mischievous weapon*
in the use of which the Indians about Buenos Ayres are trained from their
infancy, and consequently are extremely expert.
SPANISH CRUELTY.
These particulars being in good forwardness, the execution of their
scheme was perhaps precipitated by a particular outrage committed on
Orellana himself; for one of the officers, who was a very brutal fellow,
ordered Orellana aloft, which being what he was incapable of performing,
the officer, under pretence of his disobedience, beat him with such
violence that he left him bleeding on the deck and stupefied for some
time with his bruises and wounds. This usage undoubtedly heightened his
thirst for revenge, and made him eager and impatient till the means of
executing it were in his power, so that within a day or two after this
incident he and his followers opened their desperate resolves in the
ensuing manner.
(*Note. It is called a bola.)
A DARING ADVENTURE.
It was 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
waist of the ship was filled with live cattle, and the forecastle was
manned with its customary watch. Orellana and his companions under cover
of the night, having prepared their weapons and thrown off their trousers
and the more cumbrous part of their dress, came altogether on the
quarter-deck and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The boatswain
immediately reprimanded them and ordered them to be gone. On this
Orellana spoke to his followers in his native language when four of them
drew off, two towards each gangway, and the chief and the 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 used by those savages,
which is said to be the harshest and most terrifying sound known in
nature. This hideous yell was the signal for beginning the massacre, for
on this the Indians all drew their knives and brandished their prepared
double-headed shot, and the six, with their chief, who remained on the
quarter-deck, immediately fell on the Spaniards who were intermingled
with them, and laid near forty of them at their feet, of whom above
twenty were killed on the spot, and the rest disabled. Many of the
officers, in the beginning of the tumult, pushed into the great cabin,
where they put out the lights and barricaded the door. And of the others,
who had avoided the first fury of the Indians, some endeavoured to escape
along the gangways into the forecastle, but the Indians placed there on
purpose stabbed the greatest part of them as they attempted to pass by,
or forced them off the gangways into the waist. Others threw themselves
voluntarily over the barricades into the waist, and thought themselves
happy to lie concealed amongst the cattle; but the greatest part escaped
up the main-shrouds and sheltered themselves either in the tops or
rigging; and though the Indians attacked only the quarter-deck, yet the
watch in the forecastle, finding their communication cut off, and being
terrified by the wounds of the few who, not being killed on the spot, had
strength sufficient to force their passage along the gangways, and not
knowing either who their enemies were or what were their numbers, they
likewise gave all over for lost, and in great confusion ran up into the
rigging of the foremast and bowsprit.
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, with a crew of nearly five hundred men, and
continued in peaceable possession of this post a considerable time; for
the officers in the great cabin (amongst whom were Pizarro and
Mindinuetta), the crew between decks, and those who had escaped into the
tops and rigging, were only anxious for their own safety, and were for a
long time incapable of forming any project for suppressing the
insurrection and recovering the possession of the ship. It is true, the
yells of the Indians, the groans of the wounded and the confused clamours
of the crew, all heightened by the obscurity of the night, had at first
greatly magnified their danger, and had filled them with the imaginary
terrors which darkness, disorder, and an ignorance of the real strength
of an enemy never fail to produce. For as the Spaniards were sensible of
the disaffection of their pressed hands, and were also conscious of their
barbarity to their prisoners, they imagined the conspiracy was general,
and considered their own destruction as infallible; so that, it is said,
some of them had once taken the resolution of leaping into the sea, but
were prevented by their companions.
However, 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 to
renew the disorder. Orellana, when he saw himself master of the
quarter-deck, broke open the arm chest, which, on a slight suspicion of
mutiny, had been ordered there a few days before, as to a place of the
greatest security. Here, he took it for granted, he should find cutlasses
sufficient for himself and his companions, in the use of which weapon
they were all extremely skilful, and with these, it was imagined, they
proposed to have forced the great cabin; but on opening the chest there
appeared nothing but firearms, which to them were of no use. There were
indeed cutlasses in the chest, but they were hid by the firearms being
laid over them. This was a sensible disappointment to them, and by this
time Pizarro and his companions in the great cabin were capable of
conversing aloud, through the cabin windows and port-holes, with those in
the gun-room and between decks; and from hence they learned that the
English (whom they principally suspected) were all safe below, and had
not intermeddled in this mutiny; and by other particulars they at last
discovered that none were concerned in it but Orellana and his people. On
this Pizarro and the officers resolved to attack them on the
quarter-deck, before any of the discontented on board should so far
recover their first surprise as to reflect on the facility and certainty
of seizing the ship by a junction with the Indians in the present
emergency. With this view Pizarro got together what arms were in the
cabin, and distributed them to those who were with him; but there were no
other firearms to be met with but pistols, and for these they had neither
powder nor ball. However, having now settled a correspondence with the
gun room, they lowered down a bucket out of the cabin window, into which
the gunner, out of one of the gun-room ports, put a quantity of pistol
cartridges. When they had thus procured ammunition, and had loaded their
pistols, they set the cabin door partly open, and fired some shot amongst
the Indians on the quarter-deck, at first without effect. But at last
Mindinuetta had the good fortune to shoot Orellana dead on the spot; on
which his faithful companions, abandoning all thoughts of further
resistance, instantly leaped into the sea, where they every man perished.
Thus was this insurrection quelled, and the possession of the
quarter-deck regained, after it had been full two hours in the power of
this great and daring chief and his gallant and unhappy countrymen.
Pizarro, having escaped this imminent peril, steered for Europe, and
arrived safe on the coast of Galicia* in the beginning of the year 1746,
after having been absent between four and five years.
(*Note. Galicia is the north-western province of Spain.)