THE COMMODORE'S PLANS--ANOTHER PRIZE--THE TRIAL DESTROYED.
By the time we arrived at Juan Fernandez 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 despatched the Trial 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 less risk of alarming the coast and of being discovered.
THE LAST LEAVE OF JUAN FERNANDEZ.
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
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 6-pounders, four 4-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 seaman to assist in navigating the ship, he
directed Captain Mitchel to leave the island as soon as possible, the
service requiring the utmost despatch, ordering him to proceed to the
latitude of 5 degrees south, and there to cruise off the high land 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 completed, 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 Fernandez,
and steering to the eastward, with an intention of joining the Trial
sloop in her station off Valparaiso.
(*Note. The Anna pink being no longer seaworthy, was broken up at Juan
Fernandez.)
On the 24th, 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 towards the two ships we had discovered with all
our canvas. 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 very 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 them to fire, ordered the master to hail the ship in Spanish,
on which the commanding officer on board her, who proved to be Mr.
Hughes, lieutenant of the Trial, answered us in English, and informed us
that she was a prize taken by the Trial a few days before, and that the
other sail at a distance was the Trial herself, disabled in her masts. We
were soon after joined by the Trial and Captain Saunders, her commander,
came on board the Centurion. He informed the Commodore that he had taken
this ship the 18th instant, that she was a prime sailer, and had cost him
thirty-six hours' chase 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 Trial'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 Trial neared them, they at length laid
aside their fears, and recommending themselves to the blessed Virgin for
protection, began to think themselves secure. And 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 Trial
perceived a light, which they chased till they arrived within gun shot,
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 Trial 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 tons 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 pounds sterling.
(*Note. Ave Maria (Hail Mary!) are the opening words of a Roman Catholic
prayer to the Virgin Mary.)
THE TRIAL DISABLED.
But to balance this success we had the misfortune to find that the Trial
had sprung her mainmast, and that her maintopmast had come by the board;
and as we were all of us standing to the eastward the next morning, with
a fresh gale at south, she had the additional ill-luck to spring her
foremast; so that now she had not a mast left on which she could carry
sail. These unhappy incidents were still further aggravated by the
impossibility we were just then under of assisting her; for the wind blew
so hard, and raised such a hollow sea, that we could not venture to hoist
out our boat, and consequently could have no communication with her; so
that we were obliged to lie to for the greatest part of forty-eight hours
to attend her.
The weather proving somewhat more moderate on the 27th, we sent our boat
for the captain of the Trial, who, when he came on board us, produced an
instrument, signed by himself and all his officers, representing that the
sloop, besides being dismasted, was so very leaky in her hull that even
in moderate weather it was necessary to keep the pumps constantly at
work, and that they were then scarcely sufficient to keep her free; so
that in the late gale, though they had all been engaged at the pumps by
turns, yet the water had increased upon them; and, upon the whole, they
apprehended her to be at present so very defective that if they met with
much bad weather they must all inevitably perish, and therefore they
petitioned the Commodore to take some measures for their future safety.
But the refitting of the Trial and the repairing of her defects was an
undertaking that in the present conjuncture greatly exceeded his power;
and besides, it would have been extreme imprudence in so critical a
juncture to have loitered away so much time as would have been necessary
for these operations. The Commodore, therefore, had no choice left him
but that of taking out her people and destroying her; but at the same
time, as he conceived it necessary for His Majesty's Service to keep up
the appearance of our force, he appointed the Trial's prize (which had
been often employed by the Viceroy of Peru as a man-of-war) to be a
frigate in His Majesty's Service, manning her with the Trial's crew and
giving new commissions to the captain and all the inferior officers
accordingly. This new frigate, when in the Spanish service, had mounted
thirty-two guns, but she was now to have only twenty, which were the
twelve that were on board the Trial, and eight that had belonged to the
Anna pink. When this affair was thus far regulated, Mr. Anson gave orders
to Captain Saunders to put it in execution, directing him to take out of
the sloop the arms, stores, ammunition, and everything that could be of
any use to the other ships, and then to scuttle her and sink her. And
after Captain Saunders had seen her destroyed he was to proceed with his
new frigate (to be called the Trial's prize) and to cruise off the high
land of Valparaiso, keeping it from him north-north-west, at the distance
of twelve or fourteen leagues. For as all ships bound from Valparaiso to
the northward steer that course, Mr. Anson proposed by this means to stop
any intelligence that might be despatched to Callao of two of their ships
being missing, which might give them apprehensions of the English
squadron being in their neighbourhood. The Trial's prize was to continue
on this station twenty-four days and if not joined by the Commodore at
the expiration of that term, she was then to proceed down the coast to
Pisco, or Nasca, where she would be certain to meet with Mr. Anson. The
Commodore likewise ordered Lieutenant Suamarez who commanded the
Centurion's prize, to keep company with Captain Saunders both to assist
him in unloading the sloop, and also that, by spreading in their cruise,
there might be less danger of any of the enemy's ships slipping by
unobserved. These orders being despatched, the Centurion parted from them
at eleven in the evening on the 27th of September, directing her course
to the southward, with a view of cruising for some days to the windward
of Valparaiso.