"I shall not attempt a description of this island at present, but only tell you it is the most romantic and pleasant place imaginable, abounding with myrtle trees, and covered with turnips and sorrel. Its bays, teeming with all kinds of fish, seem calculated for the reception of distressed seamen. We stayed here three months, employed in refitting our ships, and restoring the health of the sick, and this without any loss of time to us, it being the winter season, in which, from April to September, navigation is judged unsafe by the Spaniards. In the beginning of this month (September) we were agreeably surprised by the sight of a sail, to which we immediately gave chase, slipping our cable; but night intervening, we lost her. We soon after fell in with another, who was her consort, of 500 tons, and much richer, having about 18,000_l._ in money on board, besides a cargo, which would have been valuable (being chiefly sugar) could we have brought it to a proper market; but in these parts it is a misfortune that nothing but money is truly valuable, having no ports whereat to dispose of anything. Here I commenced captain again, in the Tryal's prize, having twelve guns, besides swivels, with thirty men, and had a separate cruise ordered me with Captain Saunders. (Vide Anson's Voyage, p. 114.) She was a ship he had taken in the sloop, which then proved so leaky and disabled in her masts by a gale of wind, that she was sunk, and her prize commissioned in her room. As nothing appeared on our station, which was to leeward of Valparaiso, we had no opportunity of exerting ourselves. We next proceeded along the coast of Peru, and took two prizes, both very valuable to the Spaniards, the one being loaded with ship timber, and the other with iron bars, but to us of no great service; by the latter, (viz. the Nuestra Senora del Carmin, 250 tons of cargo, value 400,000 dollars,) we had information of a rich vessel in the road of Paita, bound to Lousuata on the coast of Mexico, the money being still in town. This was a chance worth pursuing; and having arrived off the port in the night, we sent in all the boats manned and armed, with fifty men, surprised and took the town with scarcely any resistance or loss, except one killed and one wounded on our side; the inhabitants abandoning their houses, and retiring to the neighbouring mountains. "This event happened on the 15th of November 1741. (Vide Anson's Voyage, p. 149.) We kept possession of the town two days and a half without any disturbance from the natives, and, having plundered it, set it on fire, but spared the two churches.