Chapter 16

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.