As soon as we struck our flag, the enemy sent for all the English on board their ships, and ordered two of their own officers into our prize. The Brilliante then bore down on the Mercury, into which she fired at least twenty-five shot, which bored her sides through and through: Yet such was the construction of that extraordinary vessel, that, though quite full of water, there was not weight enough to sink her, and our three men who were in her remained unhurt. Don Pedro Midrando, the Spanish commander, ordered these three men into his own ship, in which he intended to sail for Payta. As for me, he gave directions that I should be sent forty miles up the country, to a place called _Piura_, and was so kind as to leave Mr Pressick the surgeon, and my serjeant Cobbs, to bear me company. Mr Hately and the rest of our men were ordered to Lima by land, a journey of four hundred miles.[2] Hately had the misfortune to be doubly under the displeasure of the Spaniards: First, for returning into these seas after having been long their prisoner, and being well used among them: And, second, for having stripped the Portuguese captain at Cape Frio of a good quantity of moidores, which were now found upon him. Don Pedro proposed to have this business searched to the bottom, and the guilty severely punished, without exposing the innocent to any danger. [Footnote 2: Lima is above six hundred miles from Cape Blanco, and Piura is about seventy-five miles from the same place. Betagh gives no account of the place where he landed; but forty miles northwards from Piura would only carry him to the north side of the bay of Payta; and, as he makes no mention of passing any river, he was probably landed on the south side of the river Amatape or Chira.--E.] § 2. _OBSERVATIONS MADE BY BETAGH IN THE NORTH OF PERU._