ry morning, which tended much to the recovery of our
sick, of whom, though numerous when we came here, only two died
belonging to the Duchess. We found the nights very cold, and the days
not near so warm as might have been expected in so low a latitude. It
hardly ever rains, instead of which there fall very heavy dews in the
night, which serve the purposes of rain, and the air is almost
perpetually serene.

The 13th February we held a consultation, in which we framed several
regulations for preserving secrecy, discipline, and strict honesty in
both vessels: and on the 17th we determined that two men from the Duke
should serve in the Duchess, and two of her men in the Duke, to see that
justice was reciprocally done by each ship's company to the other. The
28th we tried both pinnaces in the water under sail, having a gun fixed
in each, and every thing else requisite to render them very useful small
privateers.

SECTION II.

_Proceedings of the Expedition on the Western Coast of America_.

In the evening of the 13th March[220] we saw a sail, and the Duchess
being nearest soon took her. She was a small bark of sixteen tons from
Payta, bound to Cheripe for flour, having a small sum of money on board
to make the purchase, being commanded by a _Mestizo_, or one begotten
between a Spaniard and an Indian, having a crew of eight men, one a
Spaniard, another a negro, and all the rest Indians. On asking for news,
we were told, that all the French ships, being seven in number, had left
the South Sea six months before, and no more were to come there; adding,
that the Spaniards had such an aversion to them, that they had killed
many Frenchmen at Callao, the port of Lima, and quarrelled with them so
frequently that none of them were suffered to come ashore there for some
time before they sailed.

[Footnote 220: It is quite obvious that they had now left Juan
Fernandez, but this circumstance and its date are omitted by
Harris.--E.]

After putting some men aboard the prize, we haled close upon a wind for
the isle of _Lobos_, and had we not been informed by our prisoners, had
endangered our ships by running too far within that isle, as there are
shoals between the island and the main, having a passage for boats only
in that direction to get into the road which is to leeward of these
islands in a sound between them. This sound is a mile long and half a
mile wide, and has from ten to twelve fathoms on good ground. The only
entranc