287 



possession of Chili ; but this expedition was not 

 more fortunate than the first. 



Tlie squadron^ which consisted of four ships^ 

 was dispersed by a storm on its arrival on the 

 coast in 1638. A boat, well manned and armed, 

 being afterwards dispatched to the island of 

 Mocha, belonging to the Araucanians, the in- 

 habitants, supposing that they came to attack 

 them, fell upon the crew, put the whole to 

 death, and took possession of the boat. Another 

 experienced a similar misfortune in the little 

 island of Talca, or Santa Maria. The Arauca- 

 nians, as has been already observed, were equally 

 jealous, and not, as may be readily imagined, 

 without reason, of all the European nations. 

 Notwithstanding the ill-success of the Dutch, 

 Sir John Narborough, an English naval com- 

 mander, undertook some years after a similar 

 enterprise, by order of his sovereign Charles the 

 Second; but in passing the straits of Magel- 

 lan, he lost his whole fleet, which was much 

 belter equipped than that of the Dutch. 



In the meantime the governor, taking advan- 

 tage of the iipprudence of the Araucanian com- 

 manders, continued constantly to lay waste their 

 provinces. By a proclamation he had at first 

 directed that every prisoner taken in these in- 

 cursions, capable of bearing arms, should be put 

 to death ; but after v/ards, actuated by more hu- 

 mane sentiments, he ordered that they should be 



