ay, they took a ship of near 200 tons, in which
were 150,000 dollars. Flushed with this success, Betagh prevailed upon
Hately, and most of the people in the Mercury, not to rejoin me, saying,
they had now enough to appear like gentlemen as long as they lived, but
it would be a mere nothing when the owner's part was taken out, and the
rest divided into 500 shares. He therefore thought, since fortune had
been so kind to them, they ought to make the best of their way to India,
as they had sufficient provisions and all other requisites for the
voyage, and Captain. Hately was well able to conduct them to some port
in the East Indies. This plan was accordingly resolved on, and they fell
to leeward of the place of rendezvous. But, weighing with himself the
prodigious extent of the run, and its many hazards, and well knowing the
treatment he might expect in India, if his treachery were discovered,
Captain Hately became irresolute, and could not determine what was best
to be done, so that he kept hovering on the coast. In the mean time,
some of his crew went away in his boat to surrender themselves to the
enemy, rather than be concerned in such a piratical undertaking. Betagh
and his accomplices still kept Hately warm with liquor, and at length
brought him to the resolution of leaving the South Sea. But they had no
sooner clapped their helm a-weather for this purpose than they saw a
sail standing towards them, which proved to be a Spanish man of war,
which caught them, and spoilt their India voyage. The English prisoners
were very indifferently used; but Betagh, being a Roman Catholic, and of
a nation which the Spaniards are very fond of,[267] was treated with
much respect, and was even made an officer.

[Footnote 267: He seems to have been a Fleming, taken on board at
Ostend, when the voyage was originally intended to have proceeded under
an imperial commission.--E.]

In the morning of the 29th February, we saw a vessel at anchor in the
road of _Guanchaeo_, and anchored alongside of her at eleven a.m. She
was called the Carmasita, of about 100 tons, having only two Indian men
and a boy on board, and her only loading was a small quantity of timber
from Guayaquil. From these prisoners, I was informed of a rich ship
being in the cove of Payta, having put in there to repair some damage
she had sustained in a gale of wind. On this information I put
immediately to sea, but in purchasing our anchor, the cable parted, and
we lost our