Chapter XXX: Section III: History of the Spanish Squadron commanded by Don Joseph Pizarro

The squadron fitted out by the court of Spain, to attend our motions, and traverse our projects, we supposed to have been the ships seen off Madeira. As this force was sent out particularly against our expedition, I cannot but imagine that the following history of its casualties, so far as has come to my knowledge, by intercepted letters and other information, is an essential part of the present work. For it will from hence appear, that we were the occasion of a considerable part of the Spanish naval power being diverted from prosecuting the ambitious views of that court in Europe; and whatever men and ships were lost by the enemy in this undertaking, were lost in consequence of the precautions they took to secure themselves against our expedition.

This squadron, besides two ships bound for the West Indies, which did not part company till after they left Madeira, was composed of the following men-of-war, commanded by Don Joseph Pizarro. The Asia of 66 guns and 700 men, the admiral's ship; the Guipuscoa of 74 guns and 700 men; the Hermiona of 54 guns and 500 men; the Esperanza of 50 guns and 450 men; the St Estevan of 40 guns and 350 men; and a patache of 20 guns.

Over and above their complements of sailors and marines, these ships had on board an old Spanish regiment of foot, intended to reinforce the garrisons on the coast of the South-Sea. Having cruised some days to leeward of Madeira, as formerly mentioned, they left that station in the beginning of November, and steered for the Rio de la Plata, where they arrived on the 5th of January O.S. and coming to anchor in the bay of Maldonado, at the mouth of that river, their admiral sent immediately to Buenos Ayres for a supply of provisions, having left Spain with only four months provisions on board. While waiting this supply, they received intelligence, by the treachery of the Portuguese governor of St Catharines, of Mr Anson having arrived at that island on the 21st December preceding, and that he was preparing to put to sea again with the utmost expedition. Notwithstanding his superior force, Pizarro had his reasons, and some say his orders, for avoiding our squadron any where short of the South-Sea. He was, besides, extremely desirous of getting round Cape Horn before us, imagining that alone would effectually baffle all our designs; wherefore, hearing that we were in his neighbourhood, and that we should be soon ready to proceed for Cape Horn, he weighed anchor with his five large ships, the Patache being disabled and condemned, and the men taken out of her; and, after a stay of seventeen days only, got under sail without his provisions, which arrived at Maldonado within a day or two after his departure. Notwithstanding this precipitation, we put to sea from St Catharines four days before he did from Maldonado; and at one part of our passage to Cape Horn the two squadrons were so near, that the Pearl, one of our ships, being separated from the rest, fell in with the Spanish fleet, and, mistaking the Asia for the Centurion, got within gun-shot of the Asia before the mistake was discovered, and narrowly escaped being taken.

As it was the 22d January when the Spaniards weighed from Maldonado, they could not expect to get into the latitude of Cape Horn before the equinox; and, as they had reason to apprehend very tempestuous weather in doubling it at that season, while the Spanish sailors, for the most part accustomed to a fair-weather country, might be supposed averse from so dangerous and fatiguing a navigation, the better to encourage them, some part of their pay was advanced to them in European goods, which they were to have leave to dispose of in the South-Seas, that so the hopes of the great profits they were to make of their ventures, might animate them in their duty, and render them less disposed to repine at the labours, hardships, and perils they might in all probability meet with, before their arrival on the coast of Peru.

Towards the latter end of February, Pizarro and his squadron got into the latitude of Cape Horn, and then stood to the westwards in order to double that southern promontory. But, in the night of the last of February O.S. while turning to windward with this view, the Guipuscoa, Hermiona, and Espranza were separated from the admiral. On the 6th March following, the Guipuscoa was separated from the other two; and next day, being that after we passed the Straits of Le Maire, there came on a most furious storm at N.W. which, in spite of all their efforts, drove the whole squadron to the eastward, and, after several fruitless attempts, obliged them to bear away for the river of Plate. Pizarro arrived there in the Asia about the middle of May, and was followed a few days after by the Esperanza and Estevan. The Hermiona was supposed to have foundered, as she was never more heard of; and the Guipuscoa was run on shore and destroyed on the coast of Brazil. The calamities of all kinds which this squadron underwent in their unsuccessful attempt to double Cape Horn, can only be paralleled by what we ourselves experienced in the same climate, when buffeted by the same storms. There was indeed some diversity in our distresses, rendering it difficult to decide whose situation was most worthy of commiseration; for, to all the miseries and misfortunes we experienced in common, as shattered rigging, leaky ships, and the fatigues and despondency necessarily attendant on these disasters, there was superadded on board our squadron the ravages of a most destructive and incurable disease; and in the Spanish squadron the devastation of famine.

It has been already observed, that this squadron left Spain with only four months provisions on board, and even that, it is said, at short allowance, either owing to the hurry of their outfit, or presuming upon a supply at Buenos Ayres; so that, when their continuance at sea was prolonged, by the storms they met with off Cape Horn, a month or more beyond their expectation, they were reduced to such infinite distress, that rats, when they could be caught, sold for four dollars a-piece; and a sailor who died in one of the ships, had his death concealed by his brother for some days, who lay all that time in the hammock with the corpse, that he might receive the dead man's allowance of provisions. In this dreadful situation, if their horrors were capable of augmentation, they were alarmed by discovering a conspiracy among the marines on board the Asia, who proposed massacring the officers and whole crew, their sole motive for this bloody resolution appearing to be the desire of relieving their hunger, by appropriating the whole provisions in the ship to themselves. This design was prevented, when just on the point of execution, by means of one of their confessors, and three of the ringleaders were immediately put to death. By the complicated distresses of fatigue, sickness, and famine, the three ships that escaped lost the greatest part of their men. The admiral's ship, the Asia, arrived at Monte Video in the Rio Plata with only half her crew. The Estevan, when she anchored in the bay of Barragan had also lost half her men. The Esperanza was still more unfortunate, for of 450 hands she brought with her from Spain, only 58 remained alive. The whole regiment of foot perished except sixty men. To give a more distinct idea of what they underwent upon this occasion, I shall present a short account of the fate of the Guipuscoa, extracted from a letter written by Don Joseph Mindinuetta, her captain, to a person of distinction at Lima, a copy of which fell into our hands when in the South-Sea.

Having separated on the 6th March in a fog from the Hermiona and Esperanza, being then, as I suppose, to the S.E. of States Land, and plying to the westward, it blew a furious storm at N.W. the succeeding night, which, at half past ten, split his main-sail, and obliged him to bear away with his foresail. The ship now went ten knots an hour with a prodigious sea, and often ran her gangway under water. He likewise sprung his main-mast, and the ship made so much water that she could not be freed by four pumps assisted by bailing. On the 9th the wind became calm, but the sea continued so high that the ship, in rolling, opened all her upper works and seams, and started the butt ends of her planks, and the greatest part of her top-timbers, the bolts being drawn by the violence of the roll. In this condition, with additional disasters to the hull and rigging, they continued beating westward to the 12th, when they were in lat. 60° S. and in great want of provisions, numbers perishing daily by the fatigue of pumping, and the survivors quite dispirited by labour, hunger, and the severity of the weather, their decks being covered with snow above a foot in depth. Finding the wind fixed in the west and blowing strong, and their passage that way impossible, they resolved to bear away for the Rio Plata. On the 22d they had to throw overboard all their upper-deck guns and an anchor, and were obliged to take six turns of the cable round the ship to prevent her from opening and falling to pieces. On the 4th of April, in calm weather, but with a very heavy sea, the ship rolled so much that her main-mast came by the board, and was soon after followed by the fore and mizen masts, after which they had to cut away the boltsprit, to diminish, if possible, the leakage forwards. By this time two hundred and fifty of the men had perished by hunger and fatigue. Those who were capable of working at the pumps, at which every officer took his turn without exception, were only allowed an ounce and a half of biscuit daily; while those who were weak and sickly, so that they could not assist in this necessary labour, had no more than one ounce of wheat. It was common for the men to fall down dead at the pumps, and all they could muster for duty, including the officers, was from eighty to an hundred men.

The S.W. wind blew so fresh for some days after they lost their masts, that they could not set up jury-masts; so that they were obliged to drive like a wreck, between the latitude of 32° and 38° S. till the 24th of April, when they made the coast of Brazil at Rio de Patas, ten leagues to the southward of the island of St Catharines. They came here to an anchor, the captain being very desirous of proceeding to St Catharines, in order to save the hull of the ship, with her guns and stores: But the crew instantly left off pumping, and all in one voice cried out, _On shore! on shore!_ enraged at the hardships they had suffered and the numbers they had lost, there being at this time thirty dead bodies lying on the deck. Thus the captain was obliged to run the ship directly to the land, where she parted and sunk five days after, with all her stores and furniture; but the remainder of the crew, whom hunger and fatigue had spared, to the number of four hundred, got safe on shore.

From this account of the adventures and catastrophe of the Guiapuscoa, we may form some conjecture of the manner in which the Hermiona was lost, and of the distresses endured by the three remaining ships of the squadron which got into the Rio Plata. These last being in great want of masts, yards, rigging, and all kinds of naval stores, and having no supply at Buenos Ayres or any of the neighbouring settlements, Pizarro dispatched an advice-boat with a letter of credit to Rio de Janeiro, to purchase what was wanting from the Portuguese. He sent at the same time an express across the continent to St Jago de Chili, to be thence forwarded to the viceroy of Peru, informing him of the disasters that had befallen his squadron, and desiring a remittance of two hundred thousand dollars from the royal chest at Lima, to enable him to refit and victual his remaining ships, that he might be again in condition to attempt the passage to the South-Sea as soon as the season of the year should be more favourable. It is mentioned by the Spaniards, as a most extraordinary circumstance, that, though then the depth of winter, when the Cordilleras are esteemed impassable on account of the snow, the Indian who was charged with this express was only thirteen days on his journey from Buenos Ayres to St Jago in Chili, though the distance is three hundred Spanish leagues, near forty of which are among the snows and precipices of the Cordilleras.

The return to this dispatch of Pizarro from the viceroy was by no means favourable. Instead of two hundred thousand dollars, the sum demanded, the viceroy remitted him only one hundred thousand, telling him that it was with great difficulty he was able to procure even that sum. But the inhabitants of Lima, who considered the presence of Pizarro as absolutely necessary to their security, were much discontented at this procedure, and did not scruple to assert, that it was not the want of money, but the interested views of some of the viceroy's confidants, that prevented Pizarro from getting the whole sum.

The advice-boat sent to Rio Janeiro also executed her commission but imperfectly; for, though she brought back a considerable quantity of pitch, tar, and cordage, she could not procure either masts or yards; and, as an additional misfortune, Pizarro was disappointed of some masts he expected from Paraguay, as a carpenter whom he entrusted with a large sum of money, and sent there to cut masts, instead of prosecuting the business he was sent upon, married in the country, and refused to return. However, by removing the masts of the Esperanza into the Asia, and using what spare masts and yards they had on board, they made a shift to refit the Asia and Estevan: And, in the October following, Pizarro was prepared to put to sea with these two ships, in order to attempt the passage round Cape Horn a second time; but, in coming down the Rio Plata, the Estevan ran upon a shoal and beat off her rudder, and Pizarro proceeded to sea in the Asia without her. Having now the antarctic summer before him, and the winds favourable, no doubt was made of his having a fortunate and speedy passage: But, when off Cape Horn and going right before the wind, it being moderate weather, though in a swelling sea, the ship rolled away her masts, by some misconduct of the officer having the watch, and was a second time obliged to put back in great distress to the Rio Plata.

As the Asia had suffered considerably in this second unfortunate expedition, the Esperanza was now ordered to be refitted, the command of her being given to Mindinuetta, who was formerly captain of the Guipuscoa. In November 1742, he sailed from the Rio Plata for the south, and arrived safe on the coast of Chili, where he was met by his commodore, Pizarro, who passed over-land from Buenos Ayres. Great animosities and contests took place between these two officers, owing to the claim of Pizarro to command the Esperanza, which Mindinuetta had brought round, and now refused to resign; insisting, as he had come round the South Sea alone and under no superior, it was not now in the power of Pizarro to resume the authority he had once parted with. But, after a long and obstinate struggle, as the president of Chili interposed and declared for Pizarro, Mindinuetta was obliged to submit.

Pizarro had not yet completed the series of his misfortunes. When he and Mindinuetta returned over-land, in 1745, from Chili to Buenos Ayres, they found the Asia still at Monte Video, and resolved, if possible, to carry her to Europe. With this view they refitted her in the best manner they could, but had great difficulty in procuring a sufficient number of hands to navigate her, as all the remaining sailors of the squadron, then to be met with in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres, did not amount to an hundred men. They endeavoured to supply this defect, by pressing many of the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres, and putting on board all the English prisoners then in their custody, together with a number of Portuguese smugglers they had taken at different times, and some of the Indians of the country. Among these last there was a chief and ten of his followers, who had been surprised by a party of Spanish soldiers about three months before. The name of this chief was Orellana, and he belonged to a very powerful tribe, which had committed great ravages in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres. With this motley crew, all of them except the European sailors averse from the voyage, Pizarro set sail from Monte Video about the beginning of November 1745: and the native Spaniards, being no strangers to the dissatisfaction of their forced men, treated them, the English prisoners and the Indians, with great insolence and barbarity, particularly the Indians; for it was common in the meanest officers in the ship to beat them cruelly on the slightest pretence, and often merely to shew their superiority.

Orellana and his followers, though in appearance sufficiently patient and submissive, meditated a severe revenge for all these inhumanities. As these Indians have great intercourse with Buenos Ayres in time of peace, Orellana understood Spanish, and affected to converse with such of the English prisoners as could speak that language, seeming very desirous of being informed how many Englishmen there were on board, and of having them pointed out to him. As he knew the English were as much enemies to the Spaniards as he was, he had doubtless an intention of disclosing his purposes to them, and making them partners in the scheme he had projected for revenging his wrongs and recovering his liberty; but, having sounded them at a distance, and not finding them so precipitate and vindictive as he expected, he proceeded no farther with them, but resolved to trust alone to the resolution of his ten faithful followers, who readily engaged to observe his directions and to execute his commands. Having agreed on the measures to be pursued, they contrived to provide themselves with Dutch knives, sharp at the point, which, being the common knives used in the ship, they procured without difficulty. They also employed their leisure in secretly cutting thongs from raw hides, of which there were great numbers on board, and in fixing to each end of these thongs the double-headed shot of the small quarter-deck guns; by which they formed most mischievous weapons, in the use of which, by swinging round the head, the Indians about Buenos Ayres are extremely expert, being trained to it from their infancy. When these things were in good forwardness, the execution of their scheme was perhaps precipitated by a particular outrage committed upon Orellana, who was ordered aloft by one of the officers, and being incapable of doing so, the officer, who was a brutal fellow, beat him with such violence, under pretence of disobedience, that he left him bleeding on the deck, and quite stupified with wounds and bruises. This certainly increased his thirst of revenge, so that within a day or two he and his followers began to execute their desperate resolves in the following manner.

About nine in the evening, when many of the principal officers were on the quarter-deck indulging in the freshness of the night air, the forecastle being manned with its customary watch, Orellana and his companions, having prepared their weapons, and thrown off their trowsers and other cumbrous parts of their dress, came all together on the quarter-deck, and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The boatswain reprimanded them for their presumption, and ordered them to be gone; on which Orellana spoke to his followers in their native language, when four of them drew off, two towards each gangway, and the chief and six remaining Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the quarter-deck. When the detached Indians had taken possession of the gangways, Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth, and bellowed out the war-cry of the savages, said to be the harshest and most terrifying of sounds. This hideous yell was the signal for beginning the massacre; upon which all the Indians drew their knives and brandished their prepared double-headed shot. The chief, and the six who remained with him on the quarter-deck, fell immediately on the Spaniards with whom they were intermingled, and in a very short space laid forty of them at their feet, above twenty of whom were killed on the spot, and the rest disabled.

In the beginning of the tumult, many of the officers rushed into the great cabin, where they put out the lights and barricadoed the door; while of the others, who had escaped the first fury of the Indians, some endeavoured to escape along the gangways to the forecastle, where the Indians, placed there on purpose, stabbed the greater part of them as they attempted to pass, or forced them off the gangways into the waste of the ship, which was filled with live cattle. Some threw themselves voluntarily over the barricades into the waste, and thought themselves fortunate to lie concealed among the cattle; but the greatest part escaped up the main-shrouds, and took shelter in the tops and rigging of the ship. Although the Indians only attacked the quarter-deck, yet the watch in the forecastle, finding their communication cut off, and terrified by a few of the wounded who had been able to force their passage, and not knowing either who were their enemies, or what were their numbers, they also gave all over for lost, and in great confusion ran up into the rigging of the foremast and boltsprit.

Thus these eleven Indians, with a resolution perhaps without example, possessed themselves almost in an instant of the quarter-deck of a ship mounting sixty-six guns, and manned by near five hundred hands, and even continued in peaceable possession of this part for some time. During a considerable space, the officers in the great cabin, among whom were Pizarro and Mindinuetta, the crew between decks, and those who had escaped into the tops and rigging, were merely anxious for their own safety, and were incapable of forming any project for suppressing the insurrection and recovering the possession of the ship. The yells of the Indians, the groans of the wounded, and the confused clamours of the crew, all heightened by the darkness of the night, had at first greatly magnified the danger, and filled them with imaginary terrors. The Spaniards were sensible of the dissatisfaction of their impressed hands, and were conscious of their barbarity to their prisoners, wherefore they concluded that the conspiracy was general, and considered their own destruction as infallible; insomuch, that some are said to have designed to leap into the sea, but were prevented by their companions.

When the Indians had entirely cleared the quarter-deck, the tumult in a great measure subsided; for those who had escaped were kept silent by their fears, and the Indians were incapable of pursuing them. Orellana, when master of the quarter-deck, broke open the arm-chest, which had been ordered there a few days before, on a slight suspicion of mutiny. He there expected to find cutlasses wherewith to arm himself and his followers, who were all well skilled in the use of that weapon, and with these it is imagined they proposed to have forced the great cabin: But on opening the chest, there appeared nothing but fire-arms, which to them were of no use. There were indeed abundance of cutlasses in the chest, but they were hidden by the fire-arms being laid uppermost. This was a sensible disappointment to Orellana and his Indians. By this time Pizarro and his companions in the great cabin had been able to communicate with those below in the gun-room and between decks, by conversing aloud through the cabin windows; by which means they learnt that the English prisoners, whom they chiefly suspected, were all safe below, and had not participated in the mutiny; and by other circumstances they were at last made sensible that Orellana and his people only were concerned in it. Upon this information, Pizarro and the officers resolved to attack them on the quarter-deck, before any of the discontented on board had so far recovered from their surprise as to reflect on the facility of seizing the ship by joining with the Indians. With this view, Pizarro collected what arms were in the cabin and distributed them to those who were with him. There were no fire-arms except pistols, and for these they had neither powder nor ball; but having now a correspondence with the gun-room, they lowered a bucket from the cabin window, into which the gunner put a quantity of pistol cartridges out of one of the gun-room ports. Having thus procured ammunition, and loaded their pistols, they partly opened the cabin door, and fired several shots among the Indians on the quarter-deck, though at first without effect. At last Mindinuetta had the good fortune to shoot Orellana dead; on which his faithful companions, abandoning all thoughts of farther resistance, instantly leaped into the sea, where they all perished. Thus was this insurrection quelled, and possession of the quarter-deck regained, after it had been fully two hours in the power of this great and daring chief, and his small band of gallant unhappy countrymen.

Having thus escaped from imminent peril, Pizarro continued his voyage for Europe, and arrived safely on the coast of Gallicia in the beginning of the year 1746, after an absence of between four and five years, and having, by attendance on our expedition, diminished the royal power of Spain by above three thousand of their prime sailors, and by four considerable ships of war and a patache. For we have seen that the Hermione foundered at sea, the Guipuscoa was stranded and destroyed on the coast of Brazil, the St Estevan was condemned and broken up in the Rio Plata, and the Esperanza, being left in the South Sea, is doubtless by this time incapable of returning to Spain: So that the Asia alone, with less than an hundred hands, may be considered as all that remains of the squadron with which Pizarro put forth to sea; and whoever considers the very large proportion which this squadron bore to the whole navy of Spain, will no doubt confess that, even if our undertaking had been attended with no other advantages, than that of ruining so great a part of the naval force of so dangerous an enemy, this alone would be a sufficient equivalent for our equipment, and an incontestable proof of the service which the nation has thence received. Having thus given a summary of Pizarro's adventures, I return to the narrative of our own transactions.