At day-light, we observed large bodies of men on the hills, on both sides of the town, which we expected would have come down to attack us; but, on marching up towards them, they retired before us.  Hitherto we had taken no prisoners, except an old Indian and a boy, who told us that Captain Clipperton had been here some time before, and had set some prisoners ashore, who assured them he meant not to do them any injury; but that the inhabitants, not thinking fit to trust him, had removed all their valuable effects into the mountains, among which were 400,000 dollars belonging to the king, which had been a fine prize for Clipperton, who certainly would have found no greater difficulty in taking this town than I did.

I was constrained suddenly to halt, in consequence of hearing a gun fired from the ship, soon after which word was brought me that she was ashore.  I hurried off as fast as I could, carrying with us the union-flag, which I had planted in the church-yard; and, as we were re-embarking, the enemy came running down the hill, hallooing after us.  When I got on board, I found the ship entirely afloat, but within her own breadth of the rocks; and, as the water was quite smooth, we soon warped her off again.  We then returned to the town, whence the Spaniards retired as peaceably as before.  The remainder of the day was employed in shipping off what plunder we could find, which consisted of hogs, brown and white calavances, beans, Indian corn, wheat, flour, sugar, and as many cocoa nuts[268] as we were able to stow away, together with pans and other conveniences for preparing it, so that we were now amply provided with excellent breakfast meat for the rest of our voyage, and were, besides, full of other provisions.

[Footnote 268:  Cacao, chocolate-nuts, are almost certainly here meant.—­E.]

At eight in the morning of the 23d, a messenger came in to know what ransom I would take for the town and the ship, for which I demanded 10,000 dollars in twenty-four hours.  At eight next morning, I had a letter from the governor, signifying, that as I wrote in French, neither he nor any one about him could understand its contents; but if I would write in Latin or Spanish, I might depend on a satisfactory answer.  In the afternoon, I sent for one of our quarter-deck guns on shore, which was mounted at our guard, and was fired at sun-set, midnight, and break of day.  The messenger returned in the morning of the 24th, accompanied by the master of the ship we had taken, and on hearing of their arrival, I went on shore to know what they had to propose.  I understood from them that the governor was determined not to ransom the town, and did not care what become of it, provided the churches were not burnt.  Though I never had any intention to destroy any place devoted to divine worship, I answered that I should have no regard to the churches, or anything else, when I set the town on fire; and I told the master of the vessel, he might expect to see her in flames immediately, if not ransomed without delay.  This seemed to make a great impression, and he promised to return in three hours with the money.  I then caused every thing to be taken out of the town that could be of any use to us, after which I ordered the town to be set on fire in several places; and, as the houses were old and dry, it instantly became a bonfire.