arrived at Maldonado within a day or two after his departure. But notwithstanding the precipitation with which he departed, we put to sea from St. Catherine's four days before him, and in some part of our passage to Cape Horn the two squadrons were so near together that the _Pearl_, one of our ships, being separated from the rest, fell in with the Spanish fleet, and mistaking the _Asia_ for the _Centurion_, had got within gun-shot of Pizarro before she discovered her error, and narrowly escaped being taken. It being the 22d of January when the Spaniards weighed from Maldonado (as has been already mentioned), they could not expect to get into the latitude of Cape Horn before the equinox; and as they had reason to apprehend very tempestuous weather in doubling it at that season, and as the Spanish sailors, being for the most part accustomed to a fair weather country, might be expected to be very averse to so dangerous and fatiguing a navigation, the better to {29} encourage them, some part of their pay was advanced to them in European goods, which they were to be permitted to dispose of in the South Seas, that so the hopes of the great profit each man was to make on his venture might animate him in his duty, and render him less disposed to repine at the labour, the hardships, and the perils he would in all probability meet with before his arrival on the coast of Peru. Pizarro with his squadron having, towards the latter end of February, run the length of Cape Horn, he then stood to the westward, in order to double it; but in the night of the last day of February, O.S., while with this view they were turning to windward, the _Guipuscoa_, the _Hermiona_, and the _Esperanza_ were separated from the admiral; and, on the 6th of March following, the _Guipuscoa_ was separated from the other two; and, on the 7th (being the day after we had passed Streights le Maire), there came on a most furious storm at N.W. which, in despight of all their efforts, drove the whole squadron to the eastward, and after several fruitless attempts, obliged them to bear away for the river of Plate, where Pizarro in the _Asia_ arrived about the middle of May, and a few days after him the _Esperanza_ and the _Estevan_. The _Hermiona_ was supposed to founder at sea, for she was never heard of more; and the _Guipuscoa_ was run on shore and sunk on the coast of Brazil. The calamities of all kinds which this squadron underwent in this unsuccessful navigation can only be paralleled by what we ourselves experienced in the same climate, when buffeted by the same storms. There was indeed some diversity in our distresses, which rendered it difficult to decide whose situation was most worthy of commiseration. For to all the misfortunes we had in common with each other, as shattered rigging, leaky ships, and the fatigues and despondency which necessarily attend these disasters, there was superadded on board our squadron the ravage of a most destructive and