Our lodging while at Piura was in an out-house, which had been built on purpose for accommodating such travelling merchants.  Every day, according to the Spanish custom, our dinner was served up under covers, and we eat at the same table with Don Jeronimo; while the good lady of the house and her daughters sat in another room.  Any strong liquors are only used during dinner:  And I think the only circumstance in our conduct that any way disobliged our good host, was once seeing me drink a dram with the doctor, at a small eating-house; and, as nothing is more offensive to the Spaniards than drunkenness, I had much ado to apologise for this step.  Yet they admit of gallantry in the utmost excess, thus only exchanging one enormity for another.

After remaining about six weeks at Piura, our Indian guide came to conduct us to Payta, to which place the Brilliante had returned.  When about to take leave, Mr Pressick our surgeon was not to be found, which detained us a day.  They had concealed him in the town, meaning to have kept him there, being a very useful man; and if he could have had a small chest of medicines, he might soon have made a handsome fortune.  Next day, however, we mounted our mules, and parted reluctantly with our kind host and his family.  We went on board the Brilliante at Payta, which had done nothing at sea since we left her, and now made a sort of cruizing voyage to Calao, the port of Lima.  I have already mentioned the civility I received from Don Pedro Midranda, who was admiral or general of the South Seas; and I shall here add one circumstance to the honour of Monsieur de Grange, a captain under the general.  When taken by the Brilliante, the soldiers stripped us, considering our clothes as the usual perquisite of conquerors; on which that gentleman generously gave me a handsome suit of clothes, two pair of silk stockings, shirts, a hat and wig, and every thing accordant, so that I was rather a gainer by this accident.

Sec. 3. VOYAGE FROM PAYTA TO LIMA, AND ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH PRISONERS AT THAT PLACE.

Our voyage to Lima occupied about five weeks; and, immediately on our arrival, we were committed to the same prison in which the rest of the ship’s company were confined, except Mr Hately, who, for reasons formerly assigned, was confined by himself, and very roughly treated.  A short time after our arrival, commissioners were appointed to hear our cause, and to determine whether we were to be treated as criminals, or as prisoners of war.  We were charged with piracy, not solely for what we had done in the South Seas in plundering the Spaniards, but for having used the like violence against other nations, before our arrival in that sea, from which they proposed to infer that we had evinced a piratical disposition in the whole of our conduct.  Of this they thought they had sufficient proof in the moidores found upon Hately, as they appeared to have been taken from the subjects of a prince in amity with our sovereign.  Happily