Anson George
A Voyage Round the World
But Pizarro had not yet compleated the series of his adventures, for when he and Mindinuetta came back by land from Chili to Buenos Ayres, in the year 1745, they found at Monte Vedio the Asia, which near three years before they had left there.
This ship they resolved, if possible, to carry to Europe; and with this view they refitted her in the best manner they could; but their great difficulty was to procure a sufficient number of hands to navigate her, for all the remaining sailors of the squadron to be met with in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres did not amount to a hundred men. They endeavoured to supply this defect by pressing many of the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres, and putting on board besides all the English prisoners then in their custody, together with a number of Portuguese smugglers which 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 which had been surprised by a party of Spanish soldiers about three months before. The name of this chief was Orellana; 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 Spaniards, extremely averse to the voyage) Pizarro set sail from Monte Vedio in the river of Plate, about the beginning of November 1745; and the native Spaniards, being no strangers to the dissatisfaction of their forced men, treated both those, the English prisoners, and the Indians, with great insolence and barbarity, but more particularly the Indians, for it was common for the meanest officers in the ship to beat them most cruelly on the slightest pretences, and oftentimes only to exert their superiority. Orellana and his followers, though in appearance sufficiently patient and submissive, meditated a severe revenge for all these inhumanities. As he conversed very well in Spanish (these Indians having, in time of peace, a great intercourse with Buenos Ayres) he affected to talk with such of the English as understood that language, and seemed very desirous of being informed how many Englishmen there were on board, and which they were. As he knew that the English were as much enemies to the Spaniards as himself, 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 further with them, but resolved to trust alone to the resolution of his ten faithful followers. These, it should seem, readily engaged to observe his directions, and to execute whatever commands he gave them; and having agreed on the measures necessary to be taken, they first furnished themselves with Dutch knives sharp at the point, which being common knives used in the ship, they found no difficulty in procuring: besides this, they employed their leisure in secretly cutting out 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; this, when swung round their heads, according to the practice of their country, was a most mischievous weapon, in the use of which the Indians about Buenos Ayres are trained from their infancy, and consequently are extremely expert. These particulars being in good forwardness, the execution of their scheme was perhaps precipitated by a particular outrage committed on Orellana himself. For one of the officers, who was a very brutal fellow, ordered Orellana aloft, which being what he was incapable of performing, the officer, under pretence of his disobedience, beat him with such violence, that he left him bleeding on the deck, and stupified for some time with his bruises and wounds. This usage undoubtedly heightened his thirst for revenge, and made him eager and impatient, till the means of executing it were in his power; so that within a day or two after this incident, he and his followers opened their desperate resolves in the ensuing manner.
It was 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 waste of the ship was filled with live cattle, and the forecastle was manned with its customary watch. Orellana and his companions, under cover of the night, having prepared their weapons, and thrown off their trousers and the more cumbrous part of their dress, came all together on the quarter-deck, and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The boatswain immediately reprimanded them and ordered them to be gone. On this Orellana spoke to his followers in his native language, when four of them drew off, two towards each gangway, and the chief and the six remaining Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the quarter-deck. When the detached Indians had taken possession of the gangway, Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth, and bellowed out the war-cry used by those savages, which is said to be the harshest and most terrifying sound known in nature. This hideous yell was the signal for beginning the massacre: For on this they all drew their knives, and brandished their prepared double-headed shot; and the six with their chief, which remained on the quarter-deck, immediately fell on the Spaniards who were intermingled with them, and laid near forty of them at their feet, of which above twenty were killed on the spot, and the rest disabled. Many of the officers, in the beginning of the tumult, pushed into the great cabin, where they put out the lights, and barricadoed the door; whilst of the others, who had avoided the first fury of the Indians, some endeavoured to escape along the gangways into the forecastle, where the Indians, placed on purpose, stabbed the greatest part of them, as they attempted to pass by, or forced them off the gangways into the waste: some threw themselves voluntarily over the barricadoes into the waste, and thought themselves fortunate to lie concealed amongst the cattle. But the greatest part escaped up the main shrouds, and sheltered themselves either in the tops or rigging. And though the Indians attacked only the quarter-deck, yet the watch in the forecastle finding their communication cut off, and being terrified by the wounds of the few, who, not being killed on the spot, had strength sufficient to force their passage, and not knowing either who their enemies were, or what were their numbers, they likewise gave all over for lost, and in great confusion ran up into the rigging of the foremast and bowsprit.
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 mann'd with near five hundred hands, and continued in peaceable possession of this post a considerable time. For the officers in the great cabbin (amongst whom were Pizarro and Mindinuetta), the crew between decks, and those who had escaped into the tops and rigging, were only anxious for their own safety, and were for a long time incapable of forming any project for suppressing the insurrection, and recovering the possession of the ship. It is true, the yells of the Indians, the groans of the wounded, and the confused clamours of the crew, all heightened by the obscurity of the night, had at first greatly magnified their danger, and had filled them with the imaginary terrors, which darkness, disorder, and an ignorance of the real strength of an enemy never fail to produce. For as the Spaniards were sensible of the disaffection of their prest hands, and were also conscious of their barbarity to their prisoners, they imagined the conspiracy was general, and considered their own destruction as infallible; so that, it is said, some of them had once taken the resolution of leaping into the sea, but were prevented by their companions.
However, 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 to renew the disorder. Orellana, when he saw himself master of the quarter-deck, broke open the arm chest, which, on a slight suspicion of mutiny, had been ordered there a few days before, as to a place of the greatest security. Here he took it for granted he should find cutlasses sufficient for himself and his companions, in the use of which weapon they were all extremely skilful, and with these, it was imagined, they proposed to have forced the great cabbin. But on opening the chest, there appeared nothing but fire-arms, which to them were of no use. There were indeed cutlasses in the chest, but they were hid by the fire-arms being laid over them. This was a sensible disappointment to them, and by this time Pizarro and his companions in the great cabbin were capable of conversing aloud through the cabbin windows and port-holes with those in the gun-room and between decks, and from thence they learnt that the English (whom they principally suspected) were all safe below, and had not intermeddled in this mutiny; and by other particulars they at last discovered that none were concerned in it but Orellana and his people. On this Pizarro and the officers resolved to attack them on the quarter-deck, before any of the discontented on board should so far recover their first surprize, as to reflect on the facility and certainty of seizing the ship by a junction with the Indians in the present emergency. With this view Pizarro got together what arms were in the cabbin, and distributed them to those who were with him. But there were no other fire-arms to be met with but pistols, and for these they had neither powder nor ball. However, having now settled a correspondence with the gun-room, they lowered down a bucket out of the cabbin window, into which the gunner, out of one of the gun-room ports, put a quantity of pistol-cartridges. When they had thus procured ammunition, and had loaded their pistols, they set the cabbin door partly open, and fired several shots amongst the Indians on the quarter-deck, though at first without effect. But at last Mindinuetta, whom we have often mentioned, had the good fortune to shoot Orellona dead on the spot; on which his faithful companions, abandoning all thoughts of farther resistance, instantly leaped into the sea, where they every man perished. Thus was this insurrection quelled, and the possession of the quarter-deck regained, after it had been full two hours in the power of this great and daring chief, and his gallant unhappy countrymen.
Pizarro having escaped this imminent peril, steered for Europe, and arrived safe on the coast of Gallicia, in the beginning of the year 1746, after having been absent between four and five years, and having, by his attendance on our expedition, diminished the naval power of Spain by above three thousand hands (the flower of their sailors), and by four considerable ships of war and a patache. For we have seen that the Hermiona foundered at sea; the Guipuscoa was stranded, and sunk on the coast of Brazil; the St. Estevan was condemned, and broke up in the river of Plate; and the Esperanza, being left in the South Seas, is doubtless by this time incapable of returning to Spain. So that the Asia, only, with less than one hundred hands, may be regarded as all the remains of that squadron with which Pizarro first put to sea. And whoever considers the very large proportion, which this squadron bore to the whole navy of Spain, will, I believe, confess, that, had our undertaking been attended with no other advantages than that of ruining so great a part of the sea 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 concluded this summary of Pizarro's adventures, I shall now return again to the narration of our own transactions.
CHAPTER IV
FROM MADERA TO ST. CATHERINE'S
I have already mentioned, that on the 3d of November we weighed from Madera, after orders had been given to the captains to rendezvous at St. Jago, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, in case the squadron was separated. But the next day, when we were got to sea, the commodore considering that the season was far advanced, and that touching at St. Jago would create a new delay, he for this reason thought proper to alter his rendezvous, and to appoint the island of St. Catherine's, on the coast of Brazil, to be the first place to which the ships of the squadron were to repair in case of separation.
In our passage to the island of St. Catherine's, we found the direction of the trade-winds to differ considerably from what we had reason to expect, both from the general histories given of these winds, and the experience of former navigators. For the learned Dr. Halley, in his account of the trade-winds which take place in the Ethiopia and Atlantic Ocean, tells us that from the latitude of 28° N., to the latitude of 10° N., there is generally a fresh gale of N.E. wind, which towards the African side rarely comes to the eastward of E.N.E., or passes to the northward of N.N.E.; but on the American side the wind is somewhat more easterly, though most commonly even there it is a point or two to the northward of the east. That from 10° N. to 4° N., the calms and tornadoes take place; and from 4° N. to 30° S., the winds are generally and perpetually between the south and the east. This account we expected to have verified by our own experience; but we found considerable variations from it, both in respect to the steadiness of the winds, and the quarter from whence they blew. For though we met with a N.E. wind about the latitude of 28° N., yet from the latitude of 25° to the latitude of 18° N., the wind was never once to the northward of the east, but, on the contrary, almost constantly to the southward of it. However, from thence to the latitude of 6° 20' N., we had it usually to the northward of the east, though not entirely, it having for a short time changed to E.S.E. From hence, to about 4° 46' N., the weather was very unsettled; sometimes the wind was N.E. then changed to S.E., and sometimes we had a dead calm attended with small rain and lightning. After this, the wind continued almost invariably between the S. and E., to the latitude of 7° 30' S.; and then again as invariably between the N. and E., to the latitude of 15° 30' S.; then E. and S.E., to 21° 37' S. But after this, even to the latitude of 27° 44' S., the wind was never once between the S. and the E., though we had it at all times in all the other quarters of the compass. But this last circumstance may be in some measure accounted for from our approach to the main continent of the Brazils. I mention not these particulars with a view of cavilling at the received accounts of these trade-winds, which I doubt not are in general sufficiently accurate; but I thought it a matter worthy of public notice that such deviations from the established rules do sometimes take place. Besides, this observation may not only be of service to navigators, by putting them on their guard against these hitherto unexpected irregularities, but is a circumstance necessary to be attended to in the solution of that great question about the causes of trade-winds, and monsoons, a question which, in my opinion, has not been hitherto discussed with that clearness and accuracy which its importance (whether it be considered as a naval or philosophical inquiry) seems to demand.
On the 16th of November, one of our victuallers made a signal to speak with the commodore, and we shortened sail for her to come up with us. The master came on board, and acquainted Mr. Anson that he had complied with the terms of his charter-party, and desired to be unloaded and dismissed. Mr. Anson, on consulting the captains of the squadron, found all the ships had still such quantities of provision between their decks, and were withal so deep, that they could not, without great difficulty, take in their several proportions of brandy from the Industry pink, one of the victuallers only: consequently he was obliged to continue the other of them, the Anna pink, in the service of attending the squadron. This being resolved on, the commodore the next day made a signal for the ships to bring to, and to take on board their shares of the brandy from the Industry pink; and in this the long boats of the squadron were employed the three following days, that is, till the 19th in the evening, when the pink being unloaded, she parted company with us, being bound for Barbadoes, there to take in a freight for England. Most of the officers of the squadron took the opportunity of writing to their friends at home by this ship; but she was afterwards, as I have been since informed, unhappily taken by the Spaniards.
On the 20th of November, the captains of the squadron represented to the commodore that their ships' companies were very sickly, and that it was their own opinion, as well as their surgeons', that it would tend to the preservation of the men to let in more air between decks, but that their ships were so deep they could not possibly open their lower ports. On this representation, the commodore ordered six air scuttles to be cut in each ship, in such places where they would least weaken it.
And on this occasion I cannot but observe, how much it is the duty of all those who either by office or authority have any influence in the direction of our naval affairs, to attend to this important article, the preservation of the lives and health of our seamen. If it could be supposed that the motives of humanity were insufficient for this purpose, yet policy, and a regard to the success of our arms, and the interest and honour of each particular commander, should naturally lead us to a careful and impartial examination of every probable method proposed for maintaining a ship's crew in health and vigour. But hath this been always done? Have the late invented plain and obvious methods of keeping our ships sweet and clean by a constant supply of fresh air been considered with that candour and temper which the great benefits promised hereby ought naturally to have inspired? On the contrary, have not these salutary schemes been often treated with neglect and contempt? And have not some of those who have been entrusted with experimenting their effects, been guilty of the most indefensible partiality in the accounts they have given of these trials? Indeed, it must be confessed that many distinguished persons, both in the direction and command of our fleets, have exerted themselves on these occasions with a judicious and dispassionate examination becoming the interesting nature of the inquiry; but the wonder is, that any could be found irrational enough to act a contrary part in despight of the strongest dictates of prudence and humanity. I must, however, own that I do not believe this conduct to have arisen from motive so savage as the first reflection thereon does naturally suggest: but I rather impute it to an obstinate, and in some degree, superstitious attachment to such practices as have been long established, and to a settled contempt and hatred of all kinds of innovations, especial such as are projected by landmen and persons residing on shore. But let us return from this, I hope not, impertinent digression.
We crossed the equinoxial with a fine fresh gale at S.E. on Friday the 28th of November, at four in the morning, being then in the longitude of 27° 59' west from London. And on the 2d of December, in the morning, we saw a sail in the N.W. quarter, and made the Gloucester's and Tryal's signals to chace, and half an hour after we let out our reefs and chased with the squadron; and about noon a signal was made for the Wager to take our remaining victualler, the Anna pink, in tow. But at seven in the evening, finding we did not near the chace, and that the Wager was very far astern, we shortened sail, and made a signal for the cruizers to join the squadron. The next day but one we again discovered a sail, which on a nearer approach we judged to be the same vessel. We chased her the whole day, and though we rather gained upon her, yet night came on before we could overtake her, which obliged us to give over the chace, to collect our scattered squadron. We were much chagrined at the escape of this vessel, as we then apprehended her to be an advice-boat sent from Old Spain to Buenos Ayres with notice of our expedition. But we have since learnt that we were deceived in this conjecture, and that it was our East India Company's packet bound to St. Helena.
On the 10th of December, being by our accounts in the latitude of 20° S., and 36° 30' longitude west from London, the Tryal fired a gun to denote soundings. We immediately sounded, and found sixty fathom water, the bottom coarse ground with broken shells. The Tryal being ahead of us, had at one time thirty-seven fathom, which afterwards increased to ninety: and then she found no bottom, which happened to us too at our second trial, though we sounded with a hundred and fifty fathom of line. This is the shoal which is laid down in most charts by the name of the Abrollos; and it appeared we were upon the very edge of it; perhaps farther in it may be extremely dangerous. We were then, by our different accounts, from ninety to sixty leagues east of the coast of Brazil. The next day but one we spoke with a Portuguese brigantine from Rio Janeiro, bound to Bahia del todos Santos, who informed us that we were thirty-four leagues from Cape St. Thomas, and forty leagues from Cape Frio, which last bore from us W.S.W. By our accounts we were near eighty leagues from Cape Frio; and though on the information of this brigantine we altered our course and stood more to the southward, yet by our coming in with the land afterwards, we were fully convinced that our reckoning was much correcter than our Portuguese intelligence. We found a considerable current setting to the southward after we had passed the latitude of 16° S. And the same took place all along the coast of Brazil, and even to the southward of the river of Plate, it amounting sometimes to thirty miles in twenty-four hours, and once to above forty miles.
If this current is occasioned (as it is most probable) by the running off of the water accumulated on the coast of Brazil by the constant sweeping of the eastern trade-wind over the Ethiopic Ocean, then it is most natural to suppose that its general course is determined by the bearings of the adjacent shore. Perhaps too, in almost every other instance of currents, the same may hold true, as I believe no examples occur of considerable currents being observed at any great distance from land. If this then could be laid down for a general principle, it would be always easy to correct the reckoning by the observed latitude. But it were much to be wished, for the general interests of navigation, that the actual settings of the different currents which are known to take place in various parts of the world were examined more frequently and accurately than hitherto appears to have been done.
We now began to grow impatient for a sight of land, both for the recovery of our sick, and for the refreshment and security of those who as yet continued healthy. When we departed from St. Helens, we were in so good a condition that we lost but two men on board the Centurion in our long passage to Madera. But in this present run between Madera and St. Catherine's we were remarkably sickly, so that many died, and great numbers were confined to their hammocks, both in our own ship, and in the rest of the squadron, and several of these past all hopes of recovery. The disorders they in general laboured under were such as are common to the hot climates, and what most ships bound to the southward experience in a greater or less degree. These are those kind of fevers which they usually call calentures: a disease which was not only terrible in its first instance, but even the remains of it often proved fatal to those who considered themselves as recovered from it; for it always left them in a very weak and helpless condition, and usually afflicted either with fluxes or tenesmus's. By our continuance at sea all these complaints were every day increasing, so that it was with great joy we discovered the coast of Brazil on the 16th of December, at seven in the morning.
The coast of Brazil appeared high and mountainous land, extending from W. to W.S.W., and when we first saw it, it was about seventeen leagues distant. At noon we perceived a low double land bearing W.S.W. about ten leagues distant, which we took to be the island of St. Catherine's. That afternoon and the next morning, the wind being N.N.W., we gained very little to windward, and were apprehensive of being driven to the leeward of the island; but a little before noon the next day the wind came about to the southward, and enabled us to steer in between the north point of St. Catherine's and the neighbouring island of Alvoredo. As we stood in for the land, we had regular soundings, gradually decreasing from thirty-six to twelve fathom, all muddy ground. In this last depth of water we let go our anchor at five o'clock in the evening of the 18th, the north-west point of the island of St. Catherine's bearing S.S.W., distant three miles; and the island Alvoredo N.N.E., distant two leagues. Here we found the tide to set S.S.E. and N.N.W., at the rate of two knots, the tide of flood coming from the southward. We could from our ships observe two fortifications at a considerable distance within us, which seemed designed to prevent the passage of an enemy between the island of St. Catherine's and the main. And we could soon perceive that our squadron had alarmed the coast, for we saw the two forts hoist their colours and fire several guns, which we supposed were signals for assembling the inhabitants. To prevent any confusion, the commodore immediately sent a boat with an officer on shore to compliment the governor, and to desire a pilot to carry us into the road. The governor returned a very civil answer, and ordered us a pilot. On the morning of the 20th we weighed and stood in, and towards noon the pilot came on board us, who, the same afternoon, brought us to an anchor in five fathom and an half, in a large commodious bay on the continent side, called by the French Bon Port. In standing from our last anchorage to this place we everywhere found an ouzy bottom, with a depth of water first regularly decreasing to five fathom, and then increasing to seven, after which we had six and five fathom alternately. The next morning we weighed again with the squadron, in order to run above the two fortifications we have mentioned, which are called the castles of Santa Cruiz and St. Juan. Our soundings now between the island and the main were four, five, and six fathom, with muddy ground. As we passed by the castle of Santa Cruiz, we saluted it with eleven guns, and were answered by an equal number; and at one in the afternoon the squadron came to an anchor in five fathom and a half, the governor's island bearing N.N.W., St. Juan's Castle N.E.½E., and the island of St. Antonio south. In this position we moored at the island of St. Catherine's on Sunday the 21st of December, the whole squadron being, as I have already mentioned, sickly, and in great want of refreshments; both which inconveniencies we hoped to have soon removed at this settlement, celebrated by former navigators for its healthiness, and the plenty of its provisions, and for the freedom, indulgence, and friendly assistance there given to the ships of all European nations in amity with the crown of Portugal.