Our voyage to Lima occupied about five weeks; and, immediately on our arrival, we were committed to the same prison in which the rest of the ship's company were confined, except Mr Hately, who, for reasons formerly assigned, was confined by himself, and very roughly treated. A short time after our arrival, commissioners were appointed to hear our cause, and to determine whether we were to be treated as criminals, or as prisoners of war. We were charged with piracy, not solely for what we had done in the South Seas in plundering the Spaniards, but for having used the like violence against other nations, before our arrival in that sea, from which they proposed to infer that we had evinced a piratical disposition in the whole of our conduct. Of this they thought they had sufficient proof in the moidores found upon Hately, as they appeared to have been taken from the subjects of a prince in amity with our sovereign. Happily for us, Don Diego Morsilio, the viceroy, who was an archbishop in the decline of life, was pleased to investigate this matter; and finding only one of us guilty, would not sign an order for taking away the lives of the innocent. Some were for sending Hatley to the mines for life, and others for hanging him: But the several accounts of the vile proceedings of Captain Shelvocke contributed to his deliverance, of the truth of which circumstance, there were enough of our people at Lima to witness; for, besides Lieutenant Sergeantson and his men, who were brought thither, there came also the men whom Shelvocke sent along with Hopkins to shift for themselves in an empty bark, who were forced to surrender themselves to the Indians for want of sustenance; so that the court were satisfied that Shelvocke was the principal in that piratical act, rather than Hately. Considering that we had all been sufficiently punished before our arrival at Lima, they thought fit to let us all go by degrees. Hately was kept in irons about a twelvemonth, and was then allowed to return to England. I was more fortunate, as my imprisonment lasted only a fortnight, owing to the interposition of one Captain Fitzgerald, a gentleman born in France, who had great interest with the viceroy, and became security for me, on which I was allowed my liberty in the city, provided I were forthcoming when called for.