and was provided with boarding
nettings.

The treasure she contained amounted to nearly a million and a half of
dollars. Scarcely, however, had the galleon struck, and the
long-expected wealth she contained become the prize of the English, than
a terrible announcement was made to the commodore by one of the
lieutenants, who whispered to him that the _Centurion_ was on fire near
the powder-room. He received the intelligence with his usual calmness,
and, taking care not to alarm the crew, he gave the necessary orders for
extinguishing it. Some cartridges had been blown up between deck, in
consequence of which a quantity of oakum, near the after-hatchway, close
to the powder-room, was on fire. The volumes of smoke which issued from
this caused the apprehension that a dangerous fire had broken out.

The crew, led by their officers, set to work to extinguish it. While
they were thus engaged, the galleon fell on board the _Centurion_ on the
starboard quarter, but she was cleared without doing or receiving any
considerable damage. By the exertions of the men, the fire was in a
short time got under. The commodore now made the first lieutenant, Mr
Saumarez, captain of the prize, appointing her a post ship in his
Majesty's navy.

Most of the prisoners were at once removed on board the _Centurion_, and
judicious arrangements were made for keeping them from rising, which, as
they far outnumbered the crew of the _Centurion_, they might easily have
done; indeed, when they saw the men by whom they had been captured, they
expressed themselves with great indignation, to be thus beaten by a
handful of boys.

All the seamen, with the exception of the wounded, were placed in the
hold, and that they might have air, the two hatchways were left open,
these hatchways being fitted with a square partition of thick planks,
made in the shape of a funnel, which enclosed each hatchway on the lower
deck, and reached to that directly over it on the upper deck, rising
seven or eight feet above it. It would thus have been extremely
difficult for the Spaniards to clamber up. To increase that difficulty
four swivels were planted at the mouth of each funnel, and a sentry with
a lighted match stood ready to fire into the hold, should they attempt
to escape. The officers, amounting to seventeen or eighteen, were
lodged in the first lieutenant's cabin, under a guard of six men, while
their general, who was wounded, lay in the commodore's cabin,