Pizarro had not yet completed the series of his misfortunes.  When he and Mindinuetta returned over-land, in 1745, from Chili to Buenos Ayres, they found the Asia still at Monte Video, and resolved, if possible, to carry her to Europe.  With this view they refitted her in the best manner they could, but had great difficulty in procuring a sufficient number of hands to navigate her, as all the remaining sailors of the squadron, then to be met with in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres, did not amount to an hundred men.  They endeavoured to supply this defect, by pressing many of the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres, and putting on board all the English prisoners then in their custody, together with a number of Portuguese smugglers they had taken at different times, and some of the Indians of the country.  Among these last there was a chief and ten of his followers, who had been surprised by a party of Spanish soldiers about three months before.  The name of this chief was Orellana, and he belonged to a very powerful tribe, which had committed great ravages in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres.  With this motley crew, all of them except the European sailors averse from the voyage, Pizarro set sail from Monte Video about the beginning of November 1745:  and the native Spaniards, being no strangers to the dissatisfaction of their forced men, treated them, the English prisoners and the Indians, with great insolence and barbarity, particularly the Indians; for it was common in the meanest officers in the ship to beat them cruelly on the slightest pretence, and often merely to shew their superiority.

Orellana and his followers, though in appearance sufficiently patient and submissive, meditated a severe revenge for all these inhumanities.  As these Indians have great intercourse with Buenos Ayres in time of peace, Orellana understood Spanish, and affected to converse with such of the English prisoners as could speak that language, seeming very desirous of being informed how many Englishmen there were on board, and of having them pointed out to him.  As he knew the English were as much enemies to the Spaniards as he was, he had doubtless an intention of disclosing his purposes to them, and making them partners in the scheme he had projected for revenging his wrongs and recovering his liberty; but, having sounded them at a distance, and not finding them so precipitate and vindictive as he expected, he proceeded no farther with them, but resolved to trust alone to the resolution of his ten faithful followers, who readily engaged to observe his directions and to execute his commands.  Having agreed on the measures to be pursued, they contrived to provide themselves with Dutch knives, sharp at the point, which, being the common knives used in the ship, they procured without difficulty.  They also employed their leisure in secretly cutting thongs from raw hides, of which there were great numbers on board, and in fixing to each end of these thongs the double-headed shot of the small quarter-deck guns;