This vessel they called The Bachelor's Delight, and they at once burned the Revenge, that she might "tell no tales."
During frequent tornadoes near the straits, being short of fresh meat, the sailors caught sharks during the calms, and boiling their flesh, stewed it with pepper and vinegar. When they reached the Falkland, or Sebald de Weist islands, as they were then called, Dampier proposed to the captain to reach Juan Fernandez by Cape Horn, avoiding the straits. Their men being privateers, wilful, and not much in command, he feared would not give sufficient attention in a passage so difficult, and, though he owns they were more than usually obedient, he says he could not expect to find them at an instant's call in critical moments. At these islands they found the sea for a mile round red with shoals of small, scarlet-shelled lobsters. Dampier's advice was not taken, but on entering the South Sea they met the Nicholas, of London, a vessel fitted out ostensibly as a trader, but being in reality a Buccaneer. The captain came on board, related his adventures, and gave them a supply of bread and beef. They reached Juan Fernandez together, and heard from the Nicholas of a vessel from London, called the Cygnet, commanded by Captain Swan, which was sailing in those latitudes. It was a trader, holding a licence from the Duke of York, then High Admiral of England.
The crews discovered on the island the Mosquito Indian left behind by Captain Watling, in Lussan's expedition, because he was hunting goats when the vessel sailed. He was warmly greeted by Dampier, a fellow-countryman named Robin, and some old messmates. Robin, running up to him, fell flat on his face at his feet, and then rose and embraced him. They found he had killed three goats, and prepared some cabbage palms, to feast his visitors. The interview, writes Dampier, was tender, solemn, and affecting. When abandoned, William had nothing with him but his gun and a knife, some powder, and some shot. By notching his knife into a saw, he cut his gun barrel into pieces. These he hammered in the fire, and ground them into lances, harpoons, hooks, and knives. He hunted goats, fished, and killed seals. His clothes he made of skins, and with these also he had lined his hut; and he had contrived to elude the search of the Spaniards. Wild goats, originally brought by the Spaniard, abounded on the hills and in the grassy valleys. There was abundance of water and good timber, and the bays abounded with seals and sea-lions, that covered the sea for a mile.
Remaining here sixteen days, for the sake of the sick and those ill with the scurvy, and getting in water and provision, Cook then steered for the American coast, standing out fourteen or fifteen leagues to escape the notice of the Spaniard. The ridges were blue and mountainous. They soon captured a timber ship from Guayaquil laden with timber for Lima, from whose crew they heard that their arrival was known. They anchored next at the sandy islet of Lobos de la Mar, and scrubbed their ships. Captain Eaton, of the Nicholas, proposing to march with them in their descents, and the two vessels mustering 108 able men, Cook soon took another prize, and Eaton two more, which he pursued. They were laden with flour from Lima for Panama, and in one of them was eight tons of quince marmalade. The prisoners informed them that, on the rumour of their approach, 800,000 pieces of eight had been landed at an intermediate port. They sailed next to the Galapagos islands, abandoning a design on Truxillo, which they heard had been lately fortified. On these rocky, barren shores they feasted on turtle, pigeons, fish, and the leaves of the mammee tree. Off Cape Blanco, Captain Cook died, and was buried on land.
Capturing some Spanish Indians who had been sent as spies by the Governor of Panama, they used them as guides, and landed on the coast in search of cattle. Here a few of the men were surprised by fifty armed Spaniards, and their boat burned. The sailors thus imperilled waded out neck deep to an insulated rock near the shore, and remained there for seven hours exposed to the Spanish bullets, till they were taken off by a boat from their ship just as the tide was rising to devour them. The Spanish, lurking in ambush, made no attempt to resist the rescue.
The quartermaster, Edward Davis, was now elected commander; and after cutting lancewood for the handles of their oars, they bore away for Ria Lexa, steering for a high volcano that rises above the town and the island that forms the harbour. But here, too, the Spaniards had thrown up breast-works and placed sentinels, and the Buccaneers sailed for the Gulf of Ampalla and the island of Mangera. Davis captured the padre of a village and two Indian boys, and, proceeding to Ampalla, informed the people that he commanded a Biscay ship, sent by the King of Spain to clear those seas of pirates, and that he had come there to careen. The sailors were well received, and entertained with feasts and music, and they all repaired together to celebrate a festival by torchlight in the church. Here Davis hoped to cage them till he could dictate a ransom, but the impatience of one of his men frustrated the plan. Pushing in a lingering Indian, the man spread an alarm, the people all fled, and the Buccaneers, firing, killed one of their chiefs. They remained, however, good friends, and these very Indians soon after helped to store the ship with cattle belonging to a nunnery, situated on an island in the gulf. On leaving, Davis gave them one of his prize ships, and a quantity of flour, and released the priest who had helped him in his first stratagem.
The crews now quarrelled, and Davis, who claimed the largest share of the common plunder, left them, taking Dampier with him. Eaton touched at Cocos island, purchased a store of flour, and took in water and cocoa nuts. Davis landed at Manta, a village near Cape St. Lorenzo, and captured two old women, in order to obtain information. They learnt that many Buccaneers had lately crossed the isthmus, and were coming along the coast in canoes and piraguas. The viceroy had left no means untried to check them; the goats on the uninhabited islands had been destroyed, provisions were removed from the shore, and ships even burnt to save them from the enemy. At La Plata, Davis was joined by Captain Swan in the Cygnet, who had turned freebooter in self-defence. He had been joined by Peter Harris, who commanded a small bark, and was nephew of the Buccaneer commander killed in a sea-fight at Panama three years before. They now sent for Eaton, but found from a letter at the rendezvous at Lobos, that he had already sailed for the East Indies. While the ships were refitting at La Plata, a small bark taken by Davis, after the Spaniards had set it on fire, captured a Spaniard of 400 tons, laden with timber, and brought word that the viceroy was fitting out ten frigates to sweep them from the seas. Captain Swan, at this crisis, turned wholly freebooter, and cleared his ship of goods by selling them to every Buccaneer on credit. The bulky bales he threw overboard, the silks and muslins he kept, and retained the iron bars for ballast. In compensation for these sacrifices, the Buccaneers agreed to set aside ten shares of all booty for Captain Swan's owners.
Having cleaned the vessels and fitted up a fire-ship, the squadron landed at Paita, but found it deserted. Anchoring off the place, they demanded as ransom 300 pecks of flour, 3000 pounds of sugar, twenty-five jars of wine, and 1000 of water, and having coasted six days and obtained nothing, they burnt the town in revenge, and sailed away. They found afterwards that Eaton had been there not long before, landed his prisoners, and burnt a ship in the road. Burning Harris's vessel, which proved unseaworthy, the squadron steered for the island of Lobos del Tierra, and, being short of food, took in a supply of seals, penguins, and boobies, their Mosquito men supplying them with turtle, while the ships were cleaned and provided with firewood, preparatory to a descent upon Guayaquil. Embarking in their canoes, they captured in the bay a small ship laden with Quito cloth and two vessels full of negroes. One of these they dismasted, and a few only of the slaves they took with them. From disagreement between the two crews, the expedition failed. Having lain in the woods all night, and cut a road with great difficulty, they abandoned the scheme without firing a shot, when almost within a mile of the town, which they believed was alarmed, and on the watch.