A Voyage Round the World in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV. Baron George Anson Anson
As this force was sent out particularly against our expedition, I cannot but imagine that the following history of the casualties it met with, as far as by intercepted letters and other information the same has come to my knowledge, is a very essential part of the present work. For hence it will appear that we were the occasion that a considerable part of the naval power of Spain was diverted from the prosecution of the ambitious views of that court in Europe. And whatever men and ships were lost by the enemy in this undertaking, were lost in consequence of the precautions they took to secure themselves against our enterprizes.
This squadron (besides two ships intended for the West Indies, which did not part company till after they had left the Maderas) was composed of the following men-of-war, commanded by Don Joseph Pizarro:—
The Asia of sixty-six guns, and seven hundred men; this was the admiral's ship.
The Guipuscoa of seventy-four guns, and seven hundred men.
The Hermiona of fifty-four guns, and five hundred men.
The Esperanza of fifty guns, and four hundred and fifty men.
The St. Estevan of forty guns, and three hundred and fifty men.
And a patache of twenty guns.
These ships, over and above their complement of sailors and marines, had on board an old Spanish regiment of foot, intended to reinforce the garisons on the coast of the South Seas. When this fleet had cruised for some days to the leeward of the Maderas, as is mentioned in the preceding chapter, they left that station in the beginning of November, and steered for the river of Plate, where they arrived the 5th of January, O.S., and coming to an anchor in the bay of Maldonado, at the mouth of that river, their admiral Pizarro sent immediately to Buenos Ayres for a supply of provisions; for they had departed from Spain with only four months' provisions on board. While they lay here expecting this supply, they received intelligence, by the treachery of the Portuguese governor of St. Catherine's, of Mr. Anson's having arrived at that island on the 21st of December preceding, and of his preparing to put to sea again with the utmost expedition. Pizarro, notwithstanding his superior force, had his reasons (and as some say, his orders, likewise) for avoiding our squadron anywhere short of the South Seas. He was besides extremely desirous of getting round Cape Horn before us, as he imagined that step alone would effectually baffle all our designs; and therefore, on hearing that we were in his neighbourhood, and that we should soon be ready to proceed for Cape Horn, he weighed anchor with the five large ships (the patache being disabled and condemned, and the men taken out of her), after a stay of seventeen days only, and got under sail without his provisions, which arrived at Maldonado within a day or two after his departure. But notwithstanding the precipitation with which he departed, we put to sea from St. Catherine's four days before him, and in some part of our passage to Cape Horn the two squadrons were so near together that the Pearl, one of our ships, being separated from the rest, fell in with the Spanish fleet, and mistaking the Asia for the Centurion, had got within gun-shot of Pizarro before she discovered her error, and narrowly escaped being taken.
It being the 22d of January when the Spaniards weighed from Maldonado (as has been already mentioned), they could not expect to get into the latitude of Cape Horn before the equinox; and as they had reason to apprehend very tempestuous weather in doubling it at that season, and as the Spanish sailors, being for the most part accustomed to a fair weather country, might be expected to be very averse to so dangerous and fatiguing a navigation, the better to encourage them, some part of their pay was advanced to them in European goods, which they were to be permitted to dispose of in the South Seas, that so the hopes of the great profit each man was to make on his venture might animate him in his duty, and render him less disposed to repine at the labour, the hardships, and the perils he would in all probability meet with before his arrival on the coast of Peru.
Pizarro with his squadron having, towards the latter end of February, run the length of Cape Horn, he then stood to the westward, in order to double it; but in the night of the last day of February, O.S., while with this view they were turning to windward, the Guipuscoa, the Hermiona, and the Esperanza were separated from the admiral; and, on the 6th of March following, the Guipuscoa was separated from the other two; and, on the 7th (being the day after we had passed Streights le Maire), there came on a most furious storm at N.W. which, in despight of all their efforts, drove the whole squadron to the eastward, and after several fruitless attempts, obliged them to bear away for the river of Plate, where Pizarro in the Asia arrived about the middle of May, and a few days after him the Esperanza and the Estevan. The Hermiona was supposed to founder at sea, for she was never heard of more; and the Guipuscoa was run on shore and sunk on the coast of Brazil. The calamities of all kinds which this squadron underwent in this unsuccessful navigation can only be paralleled by what we ourselves experienced in the same climate, when buffeted by the same storms. There was indeed some diversity in our distresses, which rendered it difficult to decide whose situation was most worthy of commiseration. For to all the misfortunes we had in common with each other, as shattered rigging, leaky ships, and the fatigues and despondency which necessarily attend these disasters, there was superadded on board our squadron the ravage of a most destructive and incurable disease, and on board the Spanish squadron the devastation of famine.
For this squadron, either from the hurry of their outset, their presumption of a supply at Buenos Ayres, or from other less obvious motives, departed from Spain, as has been already observed, with no more than four months' provision on board, and even that, as it is said, at short allowance only; so that, when by the storms they met with off Cape Horn their continuance at sea was prolonged a month or more beyond their expectation, they were reduced to such infinite distress, that rats, when they could be caught, were sold for four dollars apiece; and a sailor who died on board had his death concealed for some days by his brother, who during that time lay in the same hammock with the corpse, only to receive the dead man's allowance of provisions. In this dreadful situation they were alarmed (if their horrors were capable of augmentation) by the discovery of a conspiracy among the marines on board the Asia, the admiral's ship. This had taken its rise chiefly from the miseries they endured: for though no less was proposed by the conspirators than the massacring the officers and the whole crew, yet their motive for this bloody resolution seemed to be no more than their desire of relieving their hunger by appropriating the whole ship's provisions to themselves. But their designs were prevented, when just upon the point of execution, by means of one of their confessors; and three of their ringleaders were immediately put to death. However, though the conspiracy was suppressed, their other calamities admitted of no alleviation, but grew each day more and more destructive. So that by the complicated distress of fatigue, sickness, and hunger, the three ships which escaped lost the greatest part of their men. The Asia, their admiral's ship, arrived at Monte Vedio, in the river of Plate, with half her crew only; the St. Estevan had lost, in like manner, half her hands when she anchored in the bay of Barragan; the Esperanza, a fifty-gun ship, was still more unfortunate; for of four hundred and fifty hands which she brought from Spain, only fifty-eight remained alive, and the whole regiment of foot perished except sixty men. But to give the reader a more distinct and particular idea of what they underwent upon this occasion, I shall lay before him a short account of the fate of the Guipuscoa, extracted from a letter written by Don Joseph Mendinuetta, her captain, to a person of distinction at Lima, a copy of which fell into our hands afterwards in the South Seas.
He mentions that he separated from the Hermiona and the Esperanza in a fog on the 6th of March, being then, as I suppose, to the S.E. of Staten-land, and plying to the westward; that in the night after it blew a furious storm at N.W. which, at half an hour after ten, split his main-sail, and obliged him to bear away with his fore-sail; that the ship went ten knots an hour with a prodigious sea, and often run her gangway under water; that he likewise sprung his mainmast; and the ship made so much water, that with four pumps and bailing he could not free her. That on the 9th it was calm, but the sea continued so high that the ship in rolling opened all her upper works and seams, and started the butt ends of her planking, and the greatest part of her top timbers, the bolts being drawn by the violence of her roll: that in this condition, with other additional disasters to the hull and rigging, they continued beating to the westward