(*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.

CHAPTER 17.
MORE CAPTURES--ALARM OF THE COAST--PAITA.

DISAPPOINTMENT.

Though, after leaving Captain Saunders, we were very expeditious in regaining our station, where we got the 29th at noon, yet in plying on and off till the 6th of October we had not the good fortune to discover a sail of any sort, and then, having lost all hopes of making any advantage by a longer stay, we made sail to the leeward of the port in order to join our prizes; but when we arrived on the station appointed for them we did not meet with them, though we continued there four or five days. We supposed that some chase had occasioned their leaving the station, and therefore we proceeded down the coast to the high land of Nasca, where Captain Saunders was directed to join us. Here we arrived on the 21st, and were in great expectation of meeting with some of the enemy's ships on the coast, as both the accounts of former voyages and the information of our prisoners assured us that all ships bound to Callao constantly make this land, to prevent the danger of running to the leeward of the port. But notwithstanding the advantages of this station we saw no sail till the 2nd of November, when two ships appeared in sight together. We immediately gave them chase, but soon perceived that they were the Trial's and Centurion's prizes. We found they had not been more fortunate in their cruise than we were, for they had seen no vessel since they separated from us.

We bore away the same afternoon, taking particular care to keep at such a distance from the shore that there might be no danger of our being discovered from thence.