utmost prejudice to his Majesty's service, each captain was ordered to give it in charge to the respective officers of the watch not to keep their ship at a greater distance from the _Centurion_ than two miles, as they would answer it at their peril; and if any captain should find his ship beyond the distance specified, he was to acquaint the commodore with the name of the officer who had thus neglected his duty. These necessary regulations being established, and the _Tryal_ sloop compleated, the squadron weighed on Friday the 27th of February, at seven in the morning, and stood to the sea; the _Gloucester_ indeed found a difficulty in purchasing her anchor, and was left a considerable way a-stern, so that in the night we fired several guns as a signal to her captain to make sail, but he did not come up to us till the next morning, when we found that they had been obliged to cut their cable, and leave their best bower behind them. At ten in the morning, the day after our departure, Wood's Mount, the high land over St. Julian, bore from us N. by W. distant ten leagues, and we had fifty-two fathom of water. And now standing to the southward, we had great expectation of falling in with Pizarro's squadron; for, during our stay at Port St. Julian, there had generally been hard gales between the W.N.W. and S.W., so that we had reason to conclude the Spaniards had gained no ground upon us in that interval. Indeed it was the prospect of meeting with them that had occasioned our commodore to be so very solicitous to prevent the separation of our ships, for had we been solely intent upon getting round Cape Horn in the shortest time, the properest method for this purpose would have been to have ordered each ship to have made the best of her way to the rendezvous without waiting for the rest.