Seeking harbor on the coast of Brazil to obtain wood and water, the _Speedwell_ fell in with a French man-of-war whose commander and officers were invited aboard the privateer for dinner. The crew was inconsiderate enough to touch off another mutiny, which interrupted the pleasant party; but the French guests gallantly sailed into the ruction, and their swords assisted in restoring order, after which dinner was finished. Captain Shelvocke apologized for the behavior of his crew, and explained that “it was the source of melancholy reflection that he, who had been an officer thirty years in the service should now be continually harassed by the mutiny of turbulent people.” Most of them were for deserting, but he rounded them up ashore and clubbed them into the boats, and the _Speedwell_ sailed to dare the Cape Horn passage. [Illustration: THE BRIG “OLINDA” OF SALEM, BUILT IN 1825 From the original by François Roux of Marseilles, in the Marine Room, Peabody Museum, Salem] For two long months she was beating off Terra del Fuego and fighting her way into the Pacific, spars and rigging sheathed in ice, the landlubbers benumbed and useless, decks swept by the Cape Horn combers; but Captain George Shelvocke had never a thought in his head of putting back and quitting the golden adventure. He finally made the coast of Chile, at the island of Chiloé, and when the Spanish governor of the little settlement refused to sell him provisions, he went ashore and took them. All was fair in the enemy’s waters, and the _Speedwell_ began to look for ships to plunder. He snapped up two small ones, and then captured the _Saint Firmin_, a three-hundred-ton merchant vessel with a valuable cargo. A flag of truce came out from the nearest port with proposals of ransom, and a Jesuit priest, as a messenger, begged the captain to restore to him ten great silver candlesticks which had been left as a legacy to the convent. The bargaining came to naught, and the booty was sold to the crew at an auction “before the mast,” after which the ship was burned. The _Speedwell_ next captured the town of Payta and put the torch to it after the governor had refused to contribute ten thousand pieces of eight. While the crew was ashore, a heavily armed ship came sailing in, and the flag at her yard proclaimed that a Spanish admiral was in command. In the privateer were left only the sailing-master, Mr. Coldsea, and nine men; but they served the guns with so much energy that the admiral cleared for action and reckoned he had met up with a tough antagonist. While they were banging away at each other, Captain Shelvocke was hustling his men into the boats and pulling off from shore; but before they had reached their own ship, the Spanish admiral had ranged within pistol-shot and was letting go his broadside. The situation was ticklish in the extreme, but the narrative explains it quite calmly: