A PRIZE--SPANISH PREPARATIONS--A NARROW ESCAPE.
A CHASE.
In the beginning of September, as has been already mentioned, our men
were tolerably well recovered; and now the time of navigation in this
climate drawing near, we exerted ourselves in getting our ships in
readiness for the sea. On the 8th, about eleven in the morning, we espied
a sail to the north-east, which continued to approach us till her courses
appeared even with the horizon. In this interval we all had hopes she
might prove one of our own squadron; but at length, finding she steered
away to the eastward without hauling in for the island, we concluded she
must be a Spaniard. 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 flattened to a calm. The night coming on, we lost sight of the
chase, 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 west-north-west, we got up our top-gallant masts
and yards, set all the sails, and steered to the south-east, in hopes of
retrieving our chase, 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 chase, we gave over the pursuit, conceiving that by that
time she must in all probability have reached her port.
And now we prepared to return to Juan Fernandez, and hauled up to the
south-west with that view, having but very little wind till the 12th,
when, at three in the morning, there sprang up a fresh gale from the
west-south-west, and we tacked and stood to the north-west; and at
daybreak we were agreeably surprised with the sight of a sail on our
weather-bow, between four and five leagues distant. On this we crowded
all the sail we could, and stood after her, and soon perceived it not to
be the same ship we originally gave chase to. She at first bore down upon
us, showing Spanish colours, and making a signal as to her consort; but
observing that we did not answer her signal, she instantly luffed close
to the wind and stood to the southward. Our people were now all in
spirits, and put the ship about with great alacrity; and as the chase
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 chase;
and we were apprehensive, if the 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 forereached upon her considerably, and now we were near enough
discover that she was only a merchantman, without so much as a single
tier of guns. About half an hour after twelve, being then within a
reasonable distance of her, we fired four shot amongst her rigging, on
which they lowered their topsails and bore down to us, but in very great
confusion, their top-gallant-sails and stay-sails all fluttering in the
wind. 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 hail of us, the Commodore ordered them
to bring to under his lee-quarter, and then hoisted out the boat and sent
Mr. Suamarez, 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.
A TERRIFIED CREW.
When Mr. Suamarez 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 passengers who were first sent on
board the Centurion informed us that our prize was called "Nuestra 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
broad-cloths, but inferior to them. They had, besides, several bales of a
coarser sort of cloth, of different colours, called by them Pannia da
Tierra, with a few bales of cotton and 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
cargo. This was some trunks of wrought plate, and twenty-three serons of
dollars, each weighing upwards of 200 pounds avoirdupois. The ship's
burthen was about 450 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 thence
loaded with corn and Chili wine, some gold, dried beef, and small
cordage, which at Callao they convert into larger rope. The prisoners
informed us that they left Callao in company with two other ships, which
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 Fernandez, 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
Fernandez was most probably the place of their rendezvous.
And now 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 learned with certainty the force and destination of
that squadron which cruised off Madeira at our arrival there, and
afterwards chased the Pearl in our passage to Port St. Julian. And we
had, at the same time, 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 further learned that
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. But 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 persuaded that we were either shipwrecked,
or had perished at sea, or at least had been obliged to put back again;
for 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.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
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 considerable captures, and
might thereby indemnify ourselves for the incapacity we were now 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 learned 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 fit out what
ships of force he had, and send them to the southward, where in all
probability they would intercept us singly and before we had an
opportunity of touching anywhere for refreshment, in which case he
doubted not but we should prove an easy conquest. The Viceroy of Peru
approved of this advice, and immediately fitted out four ships of force
from Callao, one of 50 guns, two of 40 guns, and one of 24 guns. Three of
them were stationed off the port of Concepcion,* and one of them at the
Island of Juan Fernandez; and in these stations they continued cruising
for us till the 6th of June, when, 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 satisfied that we
had either perished or at least had been driven back. As the time of
their quitting their station was but a few days before our arrival at the
island of Fernandez, it is evident that had we made that island on our
first search for it 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. 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.
(*Note. La Concepcion in Chili, about 270 miles south of Valparaiso.)
The whole of this intelligence was as favourable as we in our reduced
circumstances could wish for; and now we were fully satisfied as to the
broken jars, ashes, and fish-bones which we had observed at our first
landing at Juan Fernandez, these things being doubtless the relics of the
cruisers stationed off that port. Having thus satisfied ourselves in the
material articles, and having got 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 Juan Fernandez, where the next 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 surprised that we had ever surmounted them; but when they saw the
Trial sloop at anchor they were still more astonished, and it was with
great difficulty they were prevailed on to believe that she came from
England with the rest of the squadron, they at first 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.