Pizarro having escaped this imminent peril, steered for Europe, and arrived safe on the coast of Gallicia, in the beginning of the year 1746, after having been absent between four and five years, and having, by his attendance on our expedition, diminished the naval power of Spain by above three thousand hands (the flower of their sailors), and by four considerable ships of war and a patache. For we have seen that the _Hermiona_ foundered at sea; the _Guipuscoa_ was stranded, and sunk on the coast of Brazil; the _St. Estevan_ was condemned, and broke up in the river of Plate; and the _Esperanza_, being left in the South Seas, is doubtless by this time incapable of returning to Spain. So that the _Asia_, only, with less than one hundred hands, may be regarded as all the remains of that squadron with which Pizarro first put to sea. And whoever considers the very large proportion, which this squadron bore to the whole navy of Spain, will, I believe, {39} confess, that, had our undertaking been attended with no other advantages than that of ruining so great a part of the sea 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 concluded this summary of Pizarro's adventures, I shall now return again to the narration of our own transactions. {40} CHAPTER IV FROM MADERA TO ST. CATHERINE'S I have already mentioned, that on the 3d of November we weighed from Madera, after orders had been given to the captains to rendezvous at St. Jago, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, in case the squadron was separated. But the 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 a new delay, he for this reason thought proper to alter his rendezvous, and to appoint the island of St. Catherine's, on the coast of Brazil, to be the first place to which the ships of the squadron were to repair in case of separation.