The Officer Heard Me With Much
Civility, Seeming To Give Implicit Credit To All I Said; Even Staid On
Board All Night, And Went Away Next Morning, To All Appearance Well
Satisfied.
On the 5th in the morning, two boats came towards us full of armed men;
but, after taking a view of us, went to a small island in the mouth of
the harbour.
On the 6th we saw a white flag hoisted on shore, to which I
sent my launch completely manned and armed, but they found no person
near the flag, to the shaft of which a letter was fastened, and a dozen
hams lying close by. The letter was from Don Nicholas Salvo, governor
of Chiloe, intimating strong doubts of our ship being the St Rose,
complaining of the behaviour of the people in our pinnace, and desiring
me to leave the coast. I returned an answer in as proper terms as I
could devise, and next morning had another letter, couched in the utmost
civility, but absolutely refusing me any refreshments, and demanding the
restitution of the Indians said to have been made prisoners by our
pinnace. In fact I knew less of our pinnace than he did, and believed
that he actually had the people in his hands of whom he now complained.
Despairing of ever seeing my people, and still ignorant where Chacao was
situated, having no chart of the island on which I could depend, I
determined to change my style of writing to the governor, and try what
could be done by threatening to use force. I therefore wrote, that I
was determined to have provisions by fair means or foul. Next day I sent
my first lieutenant, Mr Brooks, with twenty-nine men well armed in the
launch, ordering him to bring off all the provisions he could find.
Shortly after, a boat came with a message from the governor, offering to
treat with me, if I would send an officer to Chacao: But I answered,
that I would treat no where but on board, and that he was now too late,
as I had already sent eighty men on shore to take all they could find.
In the evening the launch returned, accompanied by a large piragua, and
both were completely laden with sheep, hogs, fowls, barley, and green
peas and beans. Soon afterwards, the pinnace arrived with all her crew,
but so terrified that I did not expect them to be again fit for service
for one while. The officer told me, that he had been forced to fight his
way through several canoes, filled with armed Indians, from whom he got
clear with the utmost difficulty, and had been under the necessity of
making his passage quite round the island, a course of not less than
seventy leagues.[258] This proceeded only from excess of terror, as they
only met one boat with unarmed Indians and a Spanish sergeant, who came
off to them without the least shew of violence, as some of them
afterwards confessed, but with this addition, that there were great
numbers of people on shore, who they were apprehensive would come off to
them. The only excuse the officer could allege was, that the tide had
hurried him away, and he forgot in his fright that he had a grappling in
the boat, with which he might have anchored till the tide turned.
[Footnote 258: The circuit of the island of Chiloe by sea, could hardly
be less than 350 English miles; an arduous navigation in an open boat
upon an utterly unknown coast. - E.]
By this strange mismanagement, I missed a favourable opportunity of
seizing the town of Chacao, which I might easily have done if I had
appeared before it within forty-eight hours after our arrival, when the
governor was totally unprovided for resistance. But now, having a whole
week allowed for mustering the force of the island, he had collected
near a thousand armed Spaniards, as I learnt from the Indian prisoners
in the pinnace. I therefore laid aside all thoughts of going to the
towns, in the hopes of furnishing ourselves from the Indian farms and
plantations, in which I kept one of our boats constantly employed. By
the 16th, our decks were full of live cattle, together with poultry and
hams in abundance, and such quantities of wheat, barley, potatoes, and
maize, that I was quite satisfied. On a moderate computation, we had
added four months provisions to the stock we brought from England, so
that I was well pleased with the effects of our stay at Chiloe, and
prepared to depart. I might certainly have done much more for my own
credit and the profit of my owners, had if not been for the
mismanagement of the officer in the pinnace.
Chiloe is the first of the Spanish possessions on the coast of Chili,
reckoning from the south; and, though it produces neither gold nor
silver, is a fine island, and is considered as of great consequence;
insomuch that the Spaniards would be under great apprehensions when
strange ships enter its ports, did they not confide in the number of its
inhabitants, which is extraordinary for this part of the world. The body
of this island is in lat. 42 deg. 4' S. being about thirty leagues in length
from N. to S. and not above six or seven leagues from E. to W.[259] It
is watered by several rivers, and produces many kinds of useful trees,
yielding an agreeable prospect, by the great number of Indian farms and
plantations dispersed at small distances from each other, on rising
grounds among the woods. Within this great island there is an
archipelago or cluster of smaller islands, the number of which is not
well known; yet the smallest of these is said to be well inhabited, and
to abound in cattle. Among these islands there are very uncertain and
violent currents, which are by no means safe.
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