This transaction brought us down to the beginning of September, by which time our people were so far recovered from the scurvy, that there was little danger of burying any more for the present.  I shall therefore now sum up the whole of our loss since our departure from England, the better to convey some idea of our past sufferings and our then remaining strength.  In the Centurion, since leaving St Helens, we had buried 292 men, and had 214 remaining.  This will doubtless appear a most extraordinary mortality, yet that in the Gloucester had been much greater; as, out of a much smaller crew than ours, she had lost the same number, and had only 82 remaining alive.  It might have been expected that the mortality would have been the most terrible in the Tryal, as her decks were almost constantly knee deep in water:  But it happened otherwise, for she escaped more favourably than the other two, having only buried 42, and had 39 remaining alive.  The havoc of this cruel disease had fallen still more severely on the invalids and marines, than on the sailors.  For, in the Centurion, out of 50 invalids and 79 marines, there only remained four invalids, including officers, and 11 marines.  In the Gloucester every invalid perished; and of 48 marines, only two escaped.  It appears from this account, that the three ships departed from England with 961 men on board, of whom 626 were dead, and 335 men and boys only remained alive; a number greatly insufficient for manning the Centurion alone, and barely capable of navigating all the three with the utmost exertion of their strength and vigour.

This prodigious reduction of our men was the more alarming, as we were hitherto unacquainted with the fate of the squadron under Pizarro, and had reason to suppose that some part of it, at least, had got round into the South Seas.  We were, indeed, much of opinion, from our own sad experience, that they must have suffered greatly in the passage:  but then every port in the South Sea was open to them, and the whole power of Peru and Chili would be exerted for their refreshment and repair, and for recruiting their loss of men.  We had, also, some obscure information of a force to be fitted out against us from Paluo; and, however contemptible the ships and sailors of this part of the world may have been generally esteemed, it was hardly possible for any thing bearing the name of a ship of war, to be feebler or less considerable than ourselves.  Even if there had been nothing to apprehend from the naval power of the Spaniards in these seas, yet our enfeebled situation necessarily gave us great uneasiness, as we were incapable of making an attempt against any of their considerable places; for, in our state of weakness, the risking even of twenty men, would have put the safety of the whole in hazard.  We conceived, therefore, that we should be forced to content ourselves with what prizes we might be able to fall in with at sea, before we were discovered, and then to depart precipitately,