On the 12th of December we were at last relieved from the perplexity we had suffered occasioned by the separation of the _Gloucester_; for on that day she joined us, and informed us that in tacking to the southward on our first arrival she had sprung her fore top-mast, which had disabled her from working to windward, and prevented her from joining us sooner. And now we scuttled and sunk the _Jesu Nazareno_, the prize we took last; and having the greatest impatience to get into a proper station for intercepting the Manila galeon, we stood all together to the westward, leaving the island of Quibo, notwithstanding all the impediments we met with, about nine days after our first coming in sight of it. {208} CHAPTER IX FROM QUIBO TO THE COAST OF MEXICO On the 12th of December we stood from Quibo to the westward, and the same day the commodore delivered fresh instructions to the captains of the men-of-war, and the commanders of our prizes, appointing them the rendezvouses they were to make and the courses they were to steer in case of a separation. And first, they were directed to use all possible dispatch in getting to the northward of the harbour of Acapulco, where they were to endeavour to fall in with the land between the latitudes of 18 and 19 degrees; from thence they were to beat up the coast at eight or ten leagues distance from the shore, till they came abreast of Cape Corientes, in the latitude of 20° 20'. After they arrived there, they were to continue cruising on that station till the 14th of February, when they were to depart for the middle island of the Tres Marias, in the latitude of 21° 25', bearing from Cape Corientes N.W. by N., twenty-five leagues distant. And if at this island they did not meet the commodore, they were there to recruit their wood and water, and then immediately to proceed for the island of Macao, on the coast of China. These orders being distributed to all the ships, we had little doubt of arriving soon upon our intended station, as we expected upon the increasing our offing from Quibo to fall in with the regular trade-wind. But, to our extreme vexation, we were baffled for near a month, either by tempestuous weather from the western quarter, or by dead calms and heavy rains, attended with a sultry air; so that it was the 25th of December before we saw the island of Cocos, which according to our reckoning was only a hundred leagues from the continent; and even then we had the mortification to make so little way that we did not lose sight of it again in five days.