xliv AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 
not cut out for rough or hazardous undertakings. 
Our adventurers had better staid at home. The 
Spaniard bore down upon their schooner, and im- 
mediately took possession of her. 
As these gentlemen had gone out to battle on the 
high seas without a commission from government, 
their friends in Demerara had serious apprehensions, 
and not without reason, that they ran a risk of being 
tucked up for pirates on their reaching the Spanish 
settlements in the Orinoco. 
Being the only person in Demerara acquainted 
with the Spanish language, I volunteered my ser- 
vices to go in quest of the unfortunates. Their 
friends accepted the offer with abundant thanks ; 
and, having engaged a vessel for me, I sailed with a 
Mr. Charles Gordon (a relative of one of the prison- 
ers), for Barbadoes, to receive letters and instruc- 
tions from Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. My 
instructions from Colonel Nicholson, the Governor 
of Demerara, bear date October 24. 1807. 
A little before this (that is, on the 11th of Sep- 
tember in the same year), I had received from 
Colonel Nicholson my commission of lieutenant in 
the 2d regiment of militia. As no declaration 
had been previously required from me against tran- 
substantiation, nor any promise that I would support 
the nine and thirty articles of faith by law esta- 
blished, nor any inuendoes thrown out touching the 
“devil, the Pope, and the Pretender,” I was free 
in conscience to accept of this commission. It was 
the first commission that any one of the name of 
Waterton had received from Queen Mary’s days. 
