encountered, as we were at sea during the same time, and on their having no news of us in eight months after we were known to set sail from St. Catherine’s, they were fully persuaded that we were either shipwrecked, or had perished at sea, or at least had been obliged to put back again; for it was conceived impossible for any ships to continue at sea during so long an interval, and, therefore, on the application of the merchants and the firm persuasion of our having miscarried, the embargo had been lately taken off.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

This last article made us flatter ourselves that, as the enemy was still a stranger to our having got round Cape Horn, and the navigation of these seas was restored, we might meet with some considerable captures, and might thereby indemnify ourselves for the incapacity we were now under of attempting any of their considerable settlements on shore.  And thus much we were certain of, from the information of our prisoners, that whatever our success might be as to the prizes we might light on, we had nothing to fear, weak as we were, from the Spanish force in this part of the world; though we discovered that we had been in most imminent peril from the enemy when we least apprehended it, and when our other distresses were at the greatest height.  For we learned from the letters on board that Pizarro, in the express he dispatched to the Viceroy of Peru after his return to the River of Plate, had intimated to him that it was possible some part at least of the English squadron might get round, but that, as he was certain from his own experience that if they did arrive in those seas it must be in a very weak and defenceless condition, he advised the Viceroy, in order to be secure at all events, to fit out what ships of force he had, and send them to the southward, where in all probability they would intercept us singly and before we had an opportunity of touching anywhere for refreshment, in which case he doubted not but we should prove an easy conquest.  The Viceroy of Peru approved of this advice, and immediately fitted out four ships of force from Callao, one of 50 guns, two of 40 guns, and one of 24 guns.  Three of them were stationed off the port of Concepcion,* and one of them at the Island of Juan Fernandez; and in these stations they continued cruising for us till the 6th of June, when, not seeing anything of us, and conceiving it to be impossible that we could have kept the seas so long, they quitted their cruise and returned to Callao, fully satisfied that we had either perished or at least had been driven back.  As the time of their quitting their station was but a few days before our arrival at the island of Fernandez, it is evident that had we made that island on our first search for it on the 28th of May, when we first expected to see it, and were in reality very near it, we had doubtless fallen in with some part of the Spanish squadron; and in the distressed condition we were then in the meeting with a healthy, well-provided