y hoisted their little sails and stood in for the shore. "The Sea
Breeze came in strong" before they reached the land, so that they had to
cut up an old dry hide to make a close-fight round the launch "to keep
the Water out." They took a small timber barque the next morning, and
went aboard her, and sailed her over to Gorgona, where they scrubbed
her bottom. They learned from their prisoners that the Spaniards were
on the alert, eagerly expecting them, and cruising the seas with fast
advice boats to get a sight of them. Three warships lay at Panama, ready
to hunt them whenever the cruisers brought news of their whereabouts. A
day or two later, the pirates saw "two great ships," with many guns in
their ports, slowly beating to the southward in search of their company.
The heavy rain which was falling kept the small timber barque hidden,
while the pirates took the precautions of striking sail, and rowing
close in shore. "If they had seen and chased us," the pirates would have
landed, trusting to the local Indians to make good their escape over the
isthmus.

After twelve days of sailing they anchored about twenty miles from the
San Miguel Gulf, in order to clean their arms, and dry their clothes and
powder, before proceeding up the river, by the way they had come. The
next morning they set sail into the Gulf, and anchored off an island,
intending to search the river's mouth for Spaniards before adventuring
farther. As they had feared, a large Spanish man-of-war lay anchored at
the river's mouth, "close by the shore," with her guns commanding the
entrance. Some of her men could be seen upon the beach, by the door of a
large tent, made of the ship's lower canvas. "When the Canoas came
aboard with this News," says Dampier, "some of our Men were a little
dis-heartned; but it was no more than I ever expected." An hour or two
later they took one of the Spaniards from the ship and learned from him
that the ship carried twelve great guns, and that three companies of
men, with small arms, would join her during the next twenty-four hours.
They learned also that the Indians of that district were friendly to the
Spaniards. Plainly the pirates were in a dangerous position. "It was not
convenient to stay longer there," says Dampier. They got aboard their
ship without loss of time, and ran out of the river "with the Tide of
Ebb," resolved to get ashore at the first handy creek they came to.

Early the next morning they ran into "a small