The Admiral Went Here Ashore With Ten
Men, And Found The Island Inhabited By A People Who Had Fled From The
Extreme Cruelty Of The Spaniards, Leaving Their Original Habitations On
The Continent, To Enjoy Their Lives And Liberties In Security.
These
people at first behaved civilly to the admiral and his men, bringing
them potatoes and two fat sheep, promising also to bring them water, and
they received some presents in return.
Next day, however, when two men
went ashore with barrels for water, the natives suddenly assailed and
killed them. The reason of this outrage was, that they mistook the
English for Spaniards, whom they never spare when they fall into their
hands.
Continuing their course along the coast of Chili, they met an Indian in
a canoe, who mistook them for Spaniards, and told them of a great
Spanish ship at St Jago, laden for Peru. Rewarding him for this
intelligence, the Indian conducted them to where the ship lay at anchor,
in the port of Valparaiso, in lat. 33 deg. 40' S.[27] All the men on board
were only eight Spaniards and three negroes, who, supposing the English
to have been friends, welcomed them with beat of drum, and invited them
on board to drink Chili wine. The English immediately boarded and took
possession; when one of the Spaniards leapt overboard, and swam ashore
to give notice of the coming of the English. On this intelligence, all
the inhabitants of the town, being only about nine families, escaped
into the country. The admiral and his men landed, and rifled the town
and its chapel, from which they took a silver chalice, two cruets, and
an altar cloth. They found also in the town a considerable store of
Chili wine, with many boards of cedar wood, all of which they carried on
board their ships. Then setting all the prisoners on shore, except
one named John Griego, born in Greece, who was detained as a pilot, the
admiral directed his course for Lima, the capital of Peru, under the
guidance of this new pilot.
[Footnote 27: More correctly, 33 deg. 00' 30" S. and long. 71 deg. 38' 30" W.
from Greenwich. - E.]
Being now at sea, they examined the booty in their prize, in which they
found 25,000 pezos of pure gold of Baldivia, amounting to above 37,000
Spanish ducats. Continuing their course for Lima, they put into the
harbour of Coquimbo, in lat. 29 deg. 54' S. where the admiral sent fourteen
men on shore for water. This small company being espied by the
Spaniards, they collected 300 horse and 200 foot, and slew one of the
Englishmen, the rest getting back to the ship. From thence they went to
a port named Taropaca in Peru, in lat 20 deg. 15' S. where landing, a
Spaniard was found asleep on the shore, having eighteen bars of silver
lying beside him, worth about 4000 Spanish ducats, which they carried
away, leaving him to his repose.
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