EARLY CAREER OP MR. NOBBS. 159 
A very spirited account of this remarkable 
transaction, the success of which surpassed all 
that could have been imagined, is met with in 
Mrs. Graham's (afterwards Lady Callcott's) 
" Journal of a Kesidence in Chili in 1822." 
Lieutenant Nobbs was also engaged in a 
severe conflict with a Spanish gun-brig, near 
Arauco, a fortress of Chili. He had been or- 
dered up a river near the town ; the object being 
to recover a quantity of property belonging to 
British and American merchants, which had 
been seized by the piratical general Benevideis. 
Mr. Nobbs, when in command of a gun-boat, 
after sustaining the loss of forty-eight men, 
killed and wounded, out of a party of sixty-four, 
was taken prisoner by the troops of that despe- 
rate adventurer. 
The prisoners were marched off to prison, and 
were all shot, with the exception of Lieutenant 
Nobbs, and three English seamen. These four, 
after remaining for three weeks under sentence 
of death, were, quite unexpectedly, exchanged 
for four officers attached to Benevideis's army ; 
one of the officers, a major, being fortunately 
a brother-in-law of Benevideis. Mr. Nobbs 
had seen his fellow-prisoners, from time to time, 
led out to be shot, and had heard the reports 
of the muskets consigning them to a dreadful 
death. 
Lady Callcott states that Benevideis was the 
son of the inspector of a prison, and had been 
a foot-soldier in the first army of the Chilenos 
in the cause of South American independence. 
From her description of his character and 
