Captain Townley went with 140 men in twelve canoes to endeavour to cut out the Lima ship; but finding her at anchor within 100 yards of both the castle and platform, found it impossible to effect his purpose, so that he was obliged to return much dissatisfied. We accordingly sailed on the 11th November along the coast to the N.W. between Acapulco and Petaplan, where we found every where good anchorage two miles from shore, but the surf beat with such violence on the coast that there was no safe landing. Near the sea the country was low, and abounding in trees, especially spreading palm-trees, some of which were twenty or thirty feet high in the stem, but of no great size. This part of the country was intermixed with many small hills, mostly barren, but the vallies seemed fertile. The hill of Petaplan, or Petatlan, sends out a round point into the sea, called Cape _Jequena_, in lat. 17° 27' N. which appears from sea like an island, and a little farther west there is a knot of round hills, having an intervening bay, in which we anchored in eleven fathoms. We here landed 170 men, who marched fourteen miles into the country, when they reached a wretched Indian village, deserted by the inhabitants, so that we only found one mulatto-woman and four young children. Proceeding on the 18th about two leagues farther to the N.W. we came to a pretty good harbour named _Chequetan_, having the convenience of a good fresh-wafer river and plenty of wood. On the 19th we landed ninety-five men, having the mulatto-woman for their guide, at _Estapa_,[180] a league west from Chequetan. The guide now conducted them through a pathless wood along a river, and coming to a farm-house in a plain, they found a caravan of sixty mules, laden with flour, chocolate, cheese, and earthenware, intended for Acapulco, and of which this woman had given them intelligence. All this they carried off, except the earthenware, and brought aboard in their canoes, together with some beeves they killed in the plain. Captain Swan went afterwards on shore, and killed other eighteen beeves, without any opposition. We found the country woody but fertile, and watered by many rivers and rivulets. [Footnote 180: Istapha is to the eastward of Petatlan, but Chequetan is not delineated in modern maps, neither are any rivers noticed for a great way either N.W. or S.E. from Petatlan.--E.]