About the middle of March, Captain Cheap and the four who were left with him set out for Chiloe, the Indian having procured a number of canoes, and got many of his neighbours together for that purpose. Soon after they embarked, Mr. Elliot, the surgeon, died, so that there now remained only four of the whole company. At last, after a very complicated passage by land and water, Captain Cheap, Mr. Byron, and Mr. Campbell arrived, in the beginning of June, at the island of Chiloe, where they were received by the Spaniards with great humanity; but, on account of some quarrel among the Indians, Mr. Hamilton did not get thither till two months after. Thus, above a twelvemonth after the loss of the Wager, ended this fatiguing peregrination, which by a variety of misfortunes had diminished the company from twenty to no more than four, and those, too, brought so low that had their distresses continued but a few days longer, in all probability none of them would have survived. For the captain himself was with difficulty recovered and the rest were so reduced by the severity of the weather, their labour, and their want of all kinds of necessaries, that it was wonderful how they supported themselves so long. After some stay at Chiloe, the captain and the three who were with him were sent to Valparaiso, and thence to Santiago, the capital of Chile where they continued above a year; but on the advice of a cartel being settled betwixt Great Britain and Spain, Captain Cheap, Mr. Byron, and Mr. Hamilton were permitted to return to Europe on board a French ship. The other midshipman, Mr. Campbell, having changed his religion whilst at Santiago, chose to go back overland to Buenos Ayres with Pizarro and his officers, with whom he went afterwards to Spain on board the Asia; and there having failed in his endeavours to procure a commission from the Court of Spain, he returned to England, and attempted to get reinstated in the British Navy, and has since published a narration of his adventures, in which he complains of the injustice that had been done him and strongly disavows his ever being in the Spanish service. But as the change of his religion and his offering himself to the Court of Spain (though not accepted) are matters, which he is conscious, are capable of being incontestably proved, on these two heads he has been entirely silent. And now, after this account of the catastrophe of the Wager, I shall again resume the thread of our own story.
CHAPTER 14.
THE LOSSES FROM SCURVY--STATE AND PROSPECTS OF THE SQUADRON.
EXTRAORDINARY MORTALITY.
Our people by the beginning of September were so far recovered of the scurvy that there was little danger of burying any more at present; and therefore I shall now sum up the total of our loss since our departure from England, the better to convey some idea of our past sufferings and of our present strength. We had buried on board the Centurion since our leaving St. Helens 292, and had now remaining on board 214. This will doubtless appear a most extraordinary mortality; but yet on board the Gloucester it had been much greater, for out of a much smaller crew than ours they had buried the same number, and had only eighty-two remaining alive. It might be expected that on board the Trial the slaughter would have been the most terrible, as her decks were almost constantly knee-deep in water; but it happened otherwise, for she escaped more favourably than the rest, since she only buried forty-two, and had now thirty-nine remaining alive. The havoc of this disease had fallen still severer on the invalids and marines than on the sailors; for on board the Centurion, out of fifty invalids and seventy-nine marines there remained only four invalids, including officers, and eleven marines; and on board the Gloucester every invalid perished, and out of forty-eight marines only two escaped. From this account it appears that the three ships together departed from England with 961 men on board, of whom 626 were dead before this time; so that the whole of our remaining crews, which were now to be distributed among three ships, amounted to no more than 335 men and boys, a number greatly insufficient for manning the Centurion alone, and barely capable of navigating all the three with the utmost exertion of their strength and vigour. This prodigious reduction of our men was still the more terrifying as we were hitherto uncertain of the fate of Pizarro's squadron, and had reason to suppose that some part of it at least had got round into these seas. Indeed we were satisfied from our own experience that they must have suffered greatly in their passage; but then every port in the South Seas was open to them, and the whole power of Chile and Peru would doubtless be united in refreshing and refitting them, and recruiting the numbers they had lost. Besides, we had some obscure knowledge of a force to be fitted out at Callao; and, however contemptible the ships and sailors of this part of the world may have been generally esteemed, it was scarcely possible for anything bearing the name of a ship of force to be feebler or less considerable than ourselves. And had there been nothing to be apprehended from the naval power of the Spaniards in this part of the world, yet our enfeebled condition would nevertheless give us the greatest uneasiness, as we were incapable of attempting any of their considerable places; for the risking of twenty men, weak as we then were, was risking the safety of the whole. So that we conceived we should be necessitated to content ourselves with what few prizes we could pick up at sea before we were discovered, after which we should in all probability be obliged to depart with precipitation, and esteem ourselves fortunate to regain our native country, leaving our enemies to triumph on the inconsiderable mischief they had received from a squadron whose equipment had filled them with such dreadful apprehensions. It is true the final event proved more honourable than we had foreboded; but the intermediate calamities did likewise greatly surpass our most gloomy apprehensions, and could they have been predicted to us at this island of Juan Fernandez, they would doubtless have appeared insurmountable.
CHAPTER 15.
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.