On the 5th in the morning, two boats came towards us full of armed men; but, after taking a view of us, went to a small island in the mouth of the harbour.  On the 6th we saw a white flag hoisted on shore, to which I sent my launch completely manned and armed, but they found no person near the flag, to the shaft of which a letter was fastened, and a dozen hams lying close by.  The letter was from Don Nicholas Salvo, governor of Chiloe, intimating strong doubts of our ship being the St Rose, complaining of the behaviour of the people in our pinnace, and desiring me to leave the coast.  I returned an answer in as proper terms as I could devise, and next morning had another letter, couched in the utmost civility, but absolutely refusing me any refreshments, and demanding the restitution of the Indians said to have been made prisoners by our pinnace.  In fact I knew less of our pinnace than he did, and believed that he actually had the people in his hands of whom he now complained.

Despairing of ever seeing my people, and still ignorant where Chacao was situated, having no chart of the island on which I could depend, I determined to change my style of writing to the governor, and try what could be done by threatening to use force.  I therefore wrote, that I was determined to have provisions by fair means or foul.  Next day I sent my first lieutenant, Mr Brooks, with twenty-nine men well armed in the launch, ordering him to bring off all the provisions he could find.  Shortly after, a boat came with a message from the governor, offering to treat with me, if I would send an officer to Chacao:  But I answered, that I would treat no where but on board, and that he was now too late, as I had already sent eighty men on shore to take all they could find.

In the evening the launch returned, accompanied by a large piragua, and both were completely laden with sheep, hogs, fowls, barley, and green peas and beans.  Soon afterwards, the pinnace arrived with all her crew, but so terrified that I did not expect them to be again fit for service for one while.  The officer told me, that he had been forced to fight his way through several canoes, filled with armed Indians, from whom he got clear with the utmost difficulty, and had been under the necessity of making his passage quite round the island, a course of not less than seventy leagues.[258] This proceeded only from excess of terror, as they only met one boat with unarmed Indians and a Spanish sergeant, who came off to them without the least shew of violence, as some of them afterwards confessed, but with this addition, that there were great numbers of people on shore, who they were apprehensive would come off to them.  The only excuse the officer could allege was, that the tide had hurried him away, and he forgot in his fright that he had a grappling in the boat, with which he might have anchored till the tide turned.

[Footnote 258:  The circuit of the island of Chiloe by sea, could hardly be less than 350 English miles; an arduous navigation in an open boat upon an utterly unknown coast.—­E.]