oportion to her complement. Two or
three of them were afterwards received into the Centurion on their
petition, as they were averse from sailing in the same ship with
their old master, on account of some ill usage they alledged to have
suffered from him.

This transaction brought us down to the beginning of September, by
which time our people were so far recovered from the scurvy, that
there was little danger of burying any more for the present. I shall
therefore now sum up the whole of our loss since our departure from
England, the better to convey some idea of our past sufferings and our
then remaining strength. In the Centurion, since leaving St Helens, we
had buried 292 men, and had 214 remaining. This will doubtless appear
a most extraordinary mortality, yet that in the Gloucester had been
much greater; as, out of a much smaller crew than ours, she had lost
the same number, and had only 82 remaining alive. It might have been
expected that the mortality would have been the most terrible in the
Tryal, as her decks were almost constantly knee deep in water: But
it happened otherwise, for she escaped more favourably than the other
two, having only buried 42, and had 39 remaining alive. The havoc of
this cruel disease had fallen still more severely on the invalids
and marines, than on the sailors. For, in the Centurion, out of 50
invalids and 79 marines, there only remained four invalids, including
officers, and 11 marines. In the Gloucester every invalid perished;
and of 48 marines, only two escaped. It appears from this account,
that the three ships departed from England with 961 men on board, of
whom 626 were dead, and 335 men and boys only remained alive; a number
greatly insufficient for manning the Centurion alone, and barely
capable of navigating all the three with the utmost exertion of their
strength and vigour.

This prodigious reduction of our men was the more alarming, as we were
hitherto unacquainted with the fate of the squadron under Pizarro, and
had reason to suppose that some part of it, at least, had got round
into the South Seas. We were, indeed, much of opinion, from our own
sad experience, that they must have suffered greatly in the passage:
but then every port in the South Sea was open to them, and the whole
power of Peru and Chili would be exerted for their refreshment and
repair, and for recruiting their loss of men. We had, also, some
obscure information of a force to be fitted out against us