PIZAEEO'S DISASTERS. 47 



it was found that a large number of the men were sickly, as many as eighty being 

 so reported on the Centurion alone, and the other ships in proportion. Tents were erected 

 ashore for the invalids, and the vessels were thoroughly cleaned, smoked between decks, and 

 finally washed well with vinegar. The vessels themselves required many repairs to fit them 

 for the intended voyage round the Horn. The then governor of this Portuguese island, 

 one Don Jose Sylva De Paz, behaved very badly, doing all in his power to prevent Anson from 

 obtaining fresh provisions, and secretly dispatched an express to Buenos Ay res, where 

 a Spanish squadron under Don Josef Pizarro then lay, with an account of the number 

 and strength of the English ships. The history and disasters of this squadron would 

 fill a long chapter. 



Pizarro had with him six ships of war, and a very large force of men, two of the vessels 

 having seven hundred each on board. But in spite of his superior strength, he avoided 

 any engagement at this time, and seems to have been extremely desirous of rounding 

 Cape Horn before Anson, for he left before his provision ships arrived. Notwithstanding 

 this haste the two squadrons were once or twice very close together on the passage 

 to Cape Horn, and the Pearl, being separated from the fleet, and mistaking the Spanish 

 squadron for it, narrowly escaped falling into their hands. In a terrible gale off the Horn 

 the Spanish vessels became separated, and Pizarro turned his own ship's head, the Asia, 

 for the Plata once more. One of his squadron, the Hermiona, of fifty-four guns and 

 500 men, is believed to have foundered at sea, for she was never heard of more. Another, 

 the Guipuscoa, a still larger ship, with 700 souls on board, was run ashore and sunk 

 on the coast of Brazil. Famine and mutiny were added to the horrors of these voyages. 

 On the latter-named ship 250 died from hunger and fatigue, for those who were still strong 

 enough to work at the pumps received only an ounce and a half of biscuit per diem, while 

 the incapable were allowed an ounce of wheat ! Men fell down dead at the pumps, and 

 out of an original crew of 700, not more than eighty or a hundred were capable of duty. 

 The captain had conceived some hopes of saving his ship by taking her into St. Catherine's. 

 When the crew learned his intention, they left off pumping, and " being enraged at the 

 hardships they had suffered, and the numbers they had lost (there being at that time 

 no less than thirty dead bodies lying en the deck) they all, with one voice, cried out, 'On 

 shore ! on shore ! ' and obliged the captain to run the ship in directly for the land, where 

 the fifth day after she sunk with her stores and all her furniture on board her." Four 

 hundred of the crew got, however, safely to shore. On another of the Spanish ships 

 they became so reduced " 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." The Asia arrived at Monte Video with 

 only half her crew; the Esperanza, a fifty-gun ship, had only fifty-eight remaining out 

 of 450 men, and the St. Estevan had lost about half her hands. The latter vessel was 

 condemned, and broken up in the Plata. 



When Pizarro determined, in 1743, to return to Spain, they managed to patch up 

 the Asia, at Monte Video, but had only 100 of the original hands left. They pressed 

 a number of Portuguese, and put on board a number of English prisoners (not, however, 



