any
of the squadron were there. This appears from the orders delivered to
the captains of the squadron the day before they sailed from St
Catherine's (L. Anson's Voyage, vol. xi, p. 267,); from the orders of
the council on board the Centurion in the bay of St Julian, (p. 276,)
and from the conduct of the commodore, (p. 305,) who cruized (with the
utmost hazard) more than a fortnight off the island of Socoro, and
along the coast in its neighbourhood. It was the second rendezvous at
Baldivia, and not that at Socoro, that the commodore was forced by
necessity to neglect.

CHAPTER II.

We land on a wild Shore.--No Appearance of Inhabitants.--One of our
Lieutenants dies.--Conduct of a Part of the Crew who remained on the
Wreck.--We name the Place of our Residence Mount Misery.--Narrative of
Transactions there.--Indians appear in Canoes off the Coast.--Description
of them.--Discontents amongst our People.

It is natural to think, that to men thus upon the point of perishing by
shipwreck, the getting to land was the highest attainment of their wishes;
undoubtedly it was a desirable event; yet, all things considered, our
condition was but little mended by the change. Which ever way we looked, a
scene of horror presented itself; on one side the wreck, (in which was all
that we had in the world, to support and subsist us) together with a
boisterous sea, presented us with the most dreary prospect; on the other,
the land did not wear a much more favourable appearance: desolate and
barren, without sign of culture, we could hope to receive little other
benefit from it than the preservation it afforded us from the sea. It must
be confessed this was a great and merciful deliverance from immediate
destruction; but then we had wet, cold, and hunger to struggle with, and no
visible remedy against any of those evils. Exerting ourselves, however,
though faint, benumbed, and almost helpless, to find some wretched covert
against the extreme inclemency of the weather, we discovered an Indian hut
at a small distance from the beach, within a wood, in which as many as
possible, without distinction, crowded themselves, the night coming on
exceedingly tempestuous and rainy. But here our situation was such as to
exclude all rest and refreshment by sleep from most of us, for, besides
that we pressed upon one another extremely, we were not without our alarms
and apprehensions of being attacked by the In