by Daniel Defoe
being the distance which I thought the frigate kept inas she stood away from me. We made our cruise both of us verypunctually; I found him in the station we agreed on, and we both stoodinto the road again from whence we came.
We no sooner made the road, but we saw the frigate, as I called her,with another ship at an anchor in the same road where she had seen us;and it was easy to see that they were both of them in a great surpriseand hurry at our appearing, and that they were under sail in so verylittle time as that we easily saw they had slipped their cables, or cutaway their anchors. They fired guns twice, which we found was a signalfor their boats, which were on shore, to come on board; and soon afterwe saw three boats go off to them, though, as we understood afterwards,they were obliged to leave sixteen or seventeen of their men behindthem, who, being among the rocks catching of goats, either did not hearthe signals, or could not come to their boats time enough.
When we saw them in this hurry, we thought it must be somethingextraordinary, and bore down upon them, having the weather-gage.
They were ships of pretty good force, and full of men, and when they sawwe were resolved to speak with them, and that there was no getting awayfrom us, they made ready to engage; and putting themselves upon a-wind,first stretching ahead to get the weather-gage of us, when they thoughtthey were pretty well, boldly tacked, and lay by for us, hoisting theEnglish ancient and union jack.
We had our French colours out till now; but being just, as we thought,going to engage, I told Captain Merlotte I scorned to hide what nation Iwas of when I came to fight for the honour of our country; and, besides,as these people had spread English colours, I ought to let them knowwhat I was; that, if they were really English and friends, we might notfight by mistake, and shed the innocent blood of our own countrymen; andthat, if they were rogues, and counterfeited their being English, weshould soon perceive it.
However, when they saw us put out English colours, they knew not what tothink of it, but lay by awhile to see what we would do. I was as muchpuzzled as they, for, as I came nearer, I thought they seemed to beEnglish ships, as well by their bulk as by their way of working; and asI came still nearer, I thought I could perceive so plainly by my glassesthat they were English seamen, that I made a signal to our other ship,who had the van, and was just bearing down upon them, to bring to; and Isent my boat to him to know his opinion. He sent me word, he did believethem to be English; and the more, said he, because they could be noother nation but English or French, and the latter he was sure they werenot; but, since we were the largest ships, and that they might asplainly see us to be English as we could see them, he said he was forfighting them, because they ought to have let us known who they werefirst. However, as I had fired a gun to bring him too, he lay by alittle time till we spoke thus together.
While this was doing we could see one of their boats come off with sixoars and two men, a lieutenant and trumpeter it seems they were, sittingin the stern, and one of them holding up a flag of truce; we let themcome forward, and when they came nearer, so that we could hail them witha speaking trumpet, we asked them what countrymen they were? and theyanswered Englishmen. Then we asked them whence their ship? Their answerwas, from London. At which we bade them come on board, which they did;and we soon found that we were all countrymen and friends, and theirboat went immediately back to let them know it. We found afterwards thatthey were mere privateers, fitted out from London also, but coming lastfrom Jamaica; and we let them know no other of ourselves, but declinedkeeping company, telling them we were bound now upon traffick, and notfor purchase; that we had been at the East Indies, had made some prizes,and were going back thither again. They told us they were come into theSouth Seas for purchase, but that they had made little of it, havingheard there were three large French men-of-war in those seas, in theSpanish service, which made them wish they had not come about; and thatthey were still very doubtful what to do.
We assured them we had been the height of Lima, and that we had notheard of any men-of-war, but that we had passed for such ourselves, andperhaps were the ships they had heard of; for that we were three sail atfirst, and had sometimes carried French colours.
This made them very glad, for it was certainly so that we had passed forthree French men-of-war, and they were so assured of it, that they wentafterwards boldly up the coast, and made several very good prizes. Wethen found also that it was one of these ships that looked into theroad, as above, when we were here before, and seeing us then with Frenchcolours, took us for the men-of-war they had heard of; and, they added,that, when we came in upon them again, they gave themselves up for lostmen, but were resolved to have fought it out to the last, or rather tohave sunk by our side, or blown themselves up, than be taken.
I was not at all sorry that we had made this discovery before weengaged; for the captains were two brave resolute fellows, and had twovery good ships under them, one of thirty-six guns, but able to havecarried forty-four; the other, which we called the frigate-built ship,carried twenty-eight guns, and they were both full of men. Now, thoughwe should not have feared their force, yet my case differed from what itdid at first, for we had that on board that makes all men cowards, Imean money, of which we had such a cargo as few British ships everbrought out of those seas, and I was one of those that had now nooccasion to run needless hazards. So that, in short, I was as wellpleased without fighting as they could be; besides, I had other projectsnow in my head, and those of no less consequence than of planting a newworld, and settling new kingdoms, to the honour and advantage of mycountry; and many a time I wished heartily that all my rich cargo wassafe at London; that my merchants were sharing the silver and gold, andthe pearl among themselves; and, that I was but safe on shore, with athousand good families, upon the south of Chili, and about fifteenhundred good soldiers, and arms for ten thousand more, of which by andby, and, with the two ships I had now with me, I would not fear all thepower of the Spaniards; I mean, that they could bring against me in theSouth Seas.
I had all these things, I say, in my head already, though nothing liketo what I had afterwards, when I saw farther into the matter myself;however, these things made me very glad that I had no occasion to engagethose ships.
When we came thus to understand one another, we went all into the roadtogether, and I invited the captains of the two privateers on board me,where I treated them with the best I had, though I had no great daintiesnow, having been so long out of England. They invited me and CaptainMerlotte, and the captain of the Madagascar ship in return, and, indeed,treated us very nobly.
After this, we exchanged some presents of refreshments, and,particularly, they sent me a hogshead of rum, which, was veryacceptable; and I sent them in return a runlet of arrack, excusingmyself that I had no great store. I sent them also the quantity of onehundred weight of nutmegs and cloves; but the most agreeable present Isent them was twenty pieces of Madagascar dried beef, cured in the sun,the like of which they had never seen or tasted before; and withoutquestion, it is such an excellent way of curing beef, that if I were tobe at Madagascar again, I would take in a sufficient quantity of beef sopreserved to victual the whole ship for the voyage; and I leave it as adirection to all English seamen that have occasion to use East-Indiavoyages.
I bought afterwards six hogsheads of rum of these privateers, for Ifound they were very well stored with liquors, whatever else theywanted.
We stayed here twelve or fourteen days, but took care, by agreement,that our men should never go on shore the same days that their men wenton shore, or theirs when ours went, as well to avoid their caballingtogether, as to avoid quarrelling, though the latter was the pretence.We agreed, also, not to receive on board any of our ships respectively,any of the crews belonging to the other; and this was their advantage,for, if we would have given way to that, half their men would, for aughtI know, have come over to us.
While we lay here, one of them went a-cruising, finding the wind fair torun in for the shore; and, in about five days, she came back with aSpanish prize, laden with m
eal, cocoa, and a large quantity of biscuit,ready baked; she was bound to Lima, from Baldivia, or some port nearer,I do not remember exactly which. They had some gold on board, but notmuch, and had bought their lading at St. Jago. As soon as we saw themcoming in with a prize in tow, we put out our French colours, and gavenotice to the privateers that it was for their advantage that we did so;and so indeed it was, for it would presently have alarmed all thecountry, if such a fleet of privateers had appeared on the coast. Weprevailed with them to give us their Spanish prisoners, and to allow usto set them on shore, I having assured them I would not land them till Icame to Baldivia, nor suffer them to have the least correspondence withanybody till they came thither; the said Spaniards also giving theirparole of honour not to give any account of their being taken tillfourteen days after they were on shore.
This being the farthest port south which the Spaniards are masters of inChili, or, indeed, on the whole continent of America, they could notdesire me to carry
