[Footnote 239:  Perhaps the Isla del Cana, in lat. 8 deg. 46’ N. is here meant, or it may have been one of the islands in the Gulf of Amapala.—­E.]

While here, a plot was entered into by the crew, for seizing the captain and officers, whom they proposed to leave on the island of Lobos, and then to run away with the ship; but this was happily discovered on the 6th September, the two principal ringleaders severely punished, and the rest pardoned.  On the 17th, they took a fishing-boat with a considerable quantity of well-cured and salt fish.  On the 1st November they went into the Bay of Conception, on the coast of Chili, in lat. 36 deg. 35’ S. in chace of a vessel which outsailed them and escaped; whence they bore away for Coquimbo, in lat. 29 deg. 50’ S. and took a ship laden with sugar, tobacco, and cloth, on their passage between these two places.  On the 6th in the afternoon, on opening the harbour of Coquimbo, they saw three men-of-war at anchor with their topsails loose, which immediately slipped their cables and stood after them.  The Success hauled close upon a wind, as the prize did likewise, on which the best sailing Spanish man-of-war gave chase to the prize, which she soon came up with and took.  The two other ships crowded all sail after the Success, till afternoon, when the biggest carried away her mizen-mast, on which she fired a gun and stood in for the shore, which favoured the escape of the Success.

In the re-captured prize, they lost their third lieutenant, Mr James Milne, with twelve men.  The captain of the Spanish man-of-war which took him, was the famous Don Blas de Lesso, who was governor of Carthagena when that place was attacked by Admiral Vernon.  At first Don Blas treated Mr Milne very roughly, being enraged at having missed taking the English privateer, and had only retaken a Spanish prize, and in the first transport of his passion struck Mr Milne over the head with the flat of his sword.  But on coming to himself he sent for Mr Milne, and generously asked his pardon, and finding he had been stripped by the soldiers, ordered him a new suit of clothes, and kept him some time in his own ship.  He afterwards procured his liberty at Lima, paid his passage to Panama, giving him a jar of wine and another of brandy for his sea-store, and put 200 dollars in his pocket to carry him to England.  This unlucky accident of losing the prize revived the ill-humour among the crew of the Success, who did not indeed enter into any new plot, but became much dejected.

On the 16th they gave chase to another ship, which, after exchanging a few shots, bore away and left them.  This was a fortunate escape, as she was a ship of force commanded by one Fitzgerald, which had been fitted out on purpose to take Captain Shelvocke; but knowing this not to be the ship he was in search of, and doubting her strength, had no great stomach to engage.  These repeated disappointments, as they broke the spirit of the crew, had a very bad effect on Captain Clipperton, who now began to take to drinking, which grew at last to such a pitch that he was hardly ever quite sober; owing to which unhappy propensity he committed many errors in his future proceedings.