Our next employment, after sending our sick on shore from the _Centurion_, was cleansing our ship and filling our water. The first of these measures was indispensably necessary to our future health, as the numbers of sick, and the unavoidable negligence arising from our deplorable situation at sea, had rendered the decks most intolerably loathsome. And the filling our water was a caution that appeared not less essential to our security, as we had reason to apprehend that accidents might intervene which would oblige us to quit the island at a very short warning; for some appearances we had discovered on shore upon our first landing, gave us grounds to believe that there were Spanish cruisers in these seas, which had left the island but a short time before our {126} arrival, and might possibly return thither again, either for a recruit of water, or in search of us, since we could not doubt but that the sole business they had at sea was to intercept us, and we knew that this island was the likeliest place, in their own opinion, to meet with us. The circumstances which gave rise to these reflections (in part of which we were not mistaken, as shall be observed more at large hereafter) were our finding on shore several pieces of earthen jars, made use of in those seas for water and other liquids, which appeared to be fresh broken: we saw, too, many heaps of ashes, and near them fish-bones and pieces of fish, besides whole fish scattered here and there, which plainly appeared to have been but a short time out of the water, as they were but just beginning to decay. These were certain indications that there had been ships at this place but a short time before we came there; and as all Spanish merchantmen are instructed to avoid the island, on account of its being the common rendezvous of their enemies, we concluded those who had touched here to be ships of force; and not knowing that Pizarro was returned to Buenos Ayres, and ignorant what strength might have been fitted out at Callao, we were under some concern for our safety, being in so wretched and enfeebled a condition, that notwithstanding the rank of our ship, and the sixty guns she carried on board, which would only have aggravated our dishonour, there was scarcely a privateer sent to sea that was not an over-match for us. However, our fears on this head proved imaginary, and we were not exposed to the disgrace which might have been expected to have befallen us, had we been necessitated (as we must have been, had the enemy appeared) to fight our sixty-gun ship with no more than thirty hands.