To balance this success, we found that the Tryal had sprung her main-mast, and that her main-top-mast had come by the board; and next morning, as we were all standing to the eastward in a fresh gale at S. she had the additional misfortune to spring her fore-mast, so that now she had not a mast left on which she could carry sail.  These unhappy circumstances were still further aggravated, by the impossibility of our being then able to assist her, for the wind blew so hard, and raised such a hollow sea, that we could not venture to hoist out a boat, and consequently could not have any communication with her; so that we were obliged to lie-to for the greatest part of forty-eight hours to attend upon her, as we could not possibly leave her in such a condition of distress.  It was no small addition to our misfortunes, on this occasion, that we were all the while driving to leeward of our intended station, and at the very time, when, by our intelligence, we had reason to expect several of the enemy’s ships would appear on the coast, and would now get into the port of Valparaiso unobstructed; and, I am convinced, the embarrassment we suffered by the dismasting of the Tryal and our consequent absence from our intended station, deprived, us of some very considerable captures.

The weather proved somewhat more moderate on the 27th, when we sent our boat for Captain Saunders, who came on board the Centurion, where he produced an instrument, signed by himself and all his officers, representing that the Tryal, besides being dismasted, was so very leaky in her hull, that it was necessary to ply the pumps continually, even in moderate weather, and that they were then scarcely able to keep her free; insomuch that, in the late gale, though all the officers even had been engaged in turns at the pumps, yet the water had increased upon them; and that, on the whole, they apprehended her present condition to be so defective, that they must all inevitably perish if they met with much bad weather:  For all which reasons, he petitioned the commodore to take measures for their safety.  The refittal of the Tryal, and the repair of her defects, were utterly beyond our power on the present conjuncture, for we had no masts to spare, no stores to complete her rigging, and no port in which she could be hove down, to examine and repair her bottom.  Even had we possessed a port, and proper requisites for the purpose it would yet have been extremely imprudent, in so critical a conjuncture to have loitered away so much time as would have been necessary for these operations.  The commodore, therefore, had no choice left, but was under the necessity of taking out her people and destroying her.  Yet, as he conceived it expedient to keep up the appearance of our force, he appointed the Tryal’s prize, which had often been employed by the viceroy of Peru as a man-of-war, to be a frigate in his majesty’s service, manning her with the crew of the Tryal, and giving commissions to the captain and all the inferior officers accordingly.  This new frigate, when in the Spanish service, had mounted thirty-two guns; but she was now to have only twenty, which were the twelve that belonged to the Tryal and eight that had been on board the Anna pink.