We waited very anxiously, therefore, for the return of the boat, and at about nine o’clock she came alongside, but to my surprise, manned with six or seven men dressed as officers, who handed me a letter purporting to be from governor Gamero, stating that my men were drunk, and not able to row the boat back to the ship. The letter also requested me to commence landing the prisoners. All this seemed to me very singular. I had never seen any disposition to drunkenness among my crew, and even if the seamen had been incapable of returning in the boat, the first mate and captain Avalos would have been on board of her. I went into the cabin, and, holding out the letter to Mr. Shaw, said “Depend upon it, there is something wrong here. My men are not drunk, and if they are, where are Mr. P----n and captain Avalos?” While I was speaking, a voice was heard on deck, the cabin door was burst open, and four of the officers rushed in, two of them with drawn swords. Mr. Shaw, who was sitting down, was seized at once. One of the officers struck at me with his sword, but his arm was caught by one of the prisoners, who rushed between us. In a few minutes I was secured, in spite of my struggles, and we were told that we were prisoners. I asked to whom, and by whose authority we were taken, but to this I received no answer. We were carried on deck, and I found that the prisoners had been freed. The struggle with the troops and the crew was still going on, but as the prisoners rushed up from the hold, it became every moment more unequal. The prisoners being unarmed, wrested the guns from the hands of the soldiers, and overpowered them by force of numbers. As I came on deck, the corporal called out that he would not give up his gun unless I ordered him to, for it seems the guns had at first been demanded of the soldiers by the officers who came from the shore, and in the confusion some of them had given them up. As the corporal called to me, three of the officers threw themselves upon him, and after a long struggle he was disarmed, and put in irons. The whole attack was so unexpected, the rush of the prisoners from the hold so overwhelming, and the confusion so great, that I do not wonder that the soldiers and crew were overpowered.