FKEFACE. 



xxxiii 



lire ill a great iiiaaj places at once, to preclude the 

 possibility of its being extinguished ; and that lieut. 

 Brett took a view of the burning, for the purpose of 

 ornamenting the History of the Commodore's voy- 

 age. Yet for all this, such was the veneration of the 

 Spaniards for this great officer, that chaplain Wal- 

 ter affirms, a Jesuit of Lima, as they were told, 

 " actually interpreted in a lax and hypothetical 

 sense, that article of his church which asserts the 

 impossibility of heretics being saved.* purely to give 

 the Commodore a chance of salvation ! 



Don Juan de Ulloa, who visited Quito about this 

 period, after relating the surprise and capture of 

 Payta, pretty much in the way it is stated by Mr. 

 Walter, gives the following additional facts. 



" There was, unfortunately, at Paita, great quan- 

 tities of meal, fruits, and brandy, consigned to the 

 provinces of the mountains by the way of Piura; 

 besides other goods deposited in warehouses, to be 

 sent to Panama. There was also no small quan- 

 tity of gold and silver. As soon as daylight re- 

 turned, the English left their retreat, (the Fort,) 

 and seeing every place forsaken, they began to 

 enter the houses, which are so many magazines for 

 goods. It was not long before they met with a quan- 

 tity of brandy and wine, of which, like men whose 

 appetites are not to be governed at the sight of 

 plenty after long distress, they made a very licen- 

 tious use, and became so greatly inebriated, that the 

 mulattoes and negro slaves, seeing their condition, 

 abandoned their fears, and became so familiar with 

 the English sailors, as to drink with them, while 

 others carried off hampers of goods of their masters, 

 together with considerable quantities of gold, which 

 they buried in the sand. The long boat, however, 



VOL. I. 



Anson's Voyage, p. 246. 



5 



