A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History; of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and; Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the; Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History; of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and; Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the; Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
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.
SECTION IV.
_Passage from Madeira to St Catharines._
I have already mentioned that we weighed from Madeira on the 3d
November, after orders being given to rendezvous at St Jago, one of
the Cape Verd islands, in case of a separation. But 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 additional delay,
thought proper for this reason to alter the rendezvous, and appointed
the island of St Catharines, on the coast of Brazil, to be the first
place to which the ships of the squadron were to repair, in case of
separation.
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