Next followed the capture of Paita, Peru, an important place in those days, though it offered little or no resistance. When the sailors in search of private pillage found the clothes of the Spaniards who had fled, they were seized with an irresistible impulse to try them on; and soon their dirty unmentionables and jackets were covered by embroidered clothes and laced hats, not forgetting the bag-wig of the day. Those who could not find men’s clothes put on women’s, and half the _Centurion’s_ crew were transformed into masqueraders. The town was burned to the ground, after treasure, in the shape of plate, dollars, and other coin, to the amount of upwards of £30,000, had been taken, besides a number of valuable jewels, and plunder generally, which became the property of the immediate captors. A vessel in the harbour was taken, and five others scuttled and sunk. The Spaniards, in their representations sent to the Court of Madrid, estimated their total loss at a million and a half of dollars. After Anson left Paita, there were dissensions on board regarding the miscellaneous plunder, between those who had been ordered ashore and those whose duty obliged them to remain on board. The Commodore ruled that it should be put into one common fund, to which he gave his entire share, and then divided impartially, in proportion to each man’s rank and commission. To all but a few greedy grumblers this was perfectly acceptable, and the discontent, which might easily have been fanned into mutiny, was quashed at once. [Illustration: SURRENDER OF THE “CARMELO.”] A day or two afterwards, they rejoined the _Gloucester_, and found that its captain had taken a couple of small prizes, one of them with a cargo of wine, brandy, and olives in jars, and about £7,000 in specie. The people on the other, which was hardly more than a large boat or launch, pleaded poverty, and that their cargo was only cotton. The men on the barge had surprised them at dinner upon pigeon pie served on silver dishes, and suspicion was aroused, which subsided when some little examination had been instituted. When the packages, however, were more carefully examined on board the _Gloucester_, a considerable quantity of doubloons and dollars, to the amount of near £12,000, was discovered concealed among the cotton. Before leaving the South American coast, Anson sent fifty-nine prisoners, in two well-equipped launches taken from his prizes, to Acapulco, where they arrived safely, and spoke highly of the treatment they had received.