fired fourteen
shots at her, she struck. Mr Dennis, our third lieutenant, was sent
in the boat with sixteen men to take possession of the prize, and to
shift the prisoners to our ship.

[Footnote 1: This island of San Gallan is in lat. 14 deg. S. long. 76 deg. W.
about twelve miles S.W. of Pisco.--E.]

This vessel was named the _Santa Teresa de Jesus_, built at Guayaquil,
of about 300 tons burden, commanded by Bartolome Urrunaga, a Biscayan.
She was bound from Guayaquil to Callao, her loading consisting of
timber, cocoa, cocoa-nuts, tobacco, hides, _Pito_ thread, (which is
made of a kind of grass and is very strong,) Quito cloth, wax,
and various other articles; but the specie on board was very
inconsiderable, being principally small silver coin, not exceeding
170l. sterling in value. Her cargo, indeed, was of great value, if
we could have sold it; but the Spaniards have strict orders never to
ransom their ships, so that all the goods we captured in the South
Seas, except what little we had occasion for ourselves, were of no
advantage to us; yet it was some satisfaction to consider, that it
was so much real loss to the enemy, and that despoiling them was no
contemptible part of the service in which we were employed, and was so
far beneficial to our country. Besides her crew of forty-five hands,
she had on board ten passengers, consisting of four men and three
women, who were natives of the country, but born of Spanish parents,
together with three negro slaves who attended them. The women were a
mother and two daughters, the elder about twenty-one, and the younger
about fourteen. It is not to be wondered that women of these years
should be excessively alarmed at falling into the hands of an enemy
whom they had been taught to consider as the most lawless and brutal
of all mankind, owing to the former excesses of the buccaneers, and
by the artful insinuations of their priests. In the present instance
these apprehensions were much augmented by the singular beauty of
the youngest of the women, and the riotous disposition they might
naturally enough expect to find in a set of sailors who had not seen a
woman for near a twelvemonth.

Full of these terrors, the women all hid themselves on the lieutenant
coming on board, and, when found out, it was with difficulty he could
persuade them to come to the light. But he soon satisfied them, by the
humanity of his conduct, and by his assurances of their future
safety and honourabl