All European goods are very dear.  English cloth of fourteen or fifteen shillings a yard, sells there for ten or eleven dollars, and every other article in proportion.  We found many Spaniards here that had been taken by Commodore Anson, and had been for some time prisoners on board the Centurion..  They all spoke in the highest terms of the kind treatment they had received; and it is natural to imagine, that it was chiefly owing to that laudable example of humanity our reception here was so good.  They had never had any thing but privateers and buccaneers amongst them before, who handled their prisoners very roughly, so that the Spaniards in general, both of Peru and Chili, had the greatest dread of being taken by the English; but some of them told us, that they were so happy on board the Centurion, that they should not have been sorry if the commodore had taken them with him to England.

After we had been here some time, Mr Campbell changed his religion, and of course left us.  At the end of two years, the president sent for us, and informed us a French ship from Lima, bound to Spain, had put into Valparaiso, and that we should embark in her.  After taking leave of our good friend Mr Gedd, and all our acquaintance at St Jago, we set out for Valparaiso, mules and a guide being provided for us.  I had forgot to say before, that Captain Cheap had been allowed by the president six reals a day, and we had four for our maintenance the whole time we were at St Jago, which money we took up as we wanted it.  Our journey back was much pleasanter than we found it when we were first brought hither, as we had now no mules to drive.  The first person I met, upon our entrance into Valparaiso, was the poor soldier whom I mentioned to have been so kind to us when we were imprisoned in the fort.  I now made him a little present, which, as it came quite unexpected, made him very happy.  We took lodgings till the ship was ready to sail, and diverted ourselves as we pleased, having the good fortune, at this time, to have nothing to do with the governor or his fort.  The town is but a poor little place; there are, indeed, a good many storehouses built by the water-side for the reception of goods from the shipping.

About the 20th of December, 1744, we embarked on board the Lys frigate, belonging to St Malo.  She was a ship of four hundred and twenty tons, sixteen guns, and sixty men.  She had several passengers on board, and amongst the rest Don George Juan, a man of very superior abilities, (and since that time well known in England) who, with Don Antonio Ulloa, had been several years in Peru, upon a design of measuring some degrees of the meridian near the equator.  We were now bound to Conception, in order to join three other French ships that were likewise bound home.  As this was a time of the year when the southerly winds prevailed upon this coast, we stood off a long way to the westward, making the island of Juan Fernandez.  We did not get into the Bay of Conception till the