right hand to his
left, and kept on his course. We still kept firing at this intrepid
fellow, and I felt it was like wilful murder, since he made no
resistance, but steadily endeavoured to escape.

At length we got close under the stern, and hooked on with our
boat-hook. This the Spaniard unhooked, and we dropped astern, having
laid our oars in; but the breeze dying entirely away, we again pulled
alongside, and took possession. The poor man was still at the helm,
bleeding profusely. We offered him every assistance, and asked why he
did not surrender sooner. He replied that he was an old Castilian.
Whether he meant that an earlier surrender would have disgraced him, or
that he contemplated, from his former experience, a chance of escape to
the last moment, I cannot tell. Certain it is that no one ever behaved
better; and I felt that I would have given all I possessed to have
healed the wounds of this patient, meek, and undaunted old man, who
uttered no complaint, but submitted to his fate with a magnanimity which
would have done credit to Socrates himself. He had received four
musket-balls in his body, and, of course, survived his capture but a
very few hours.

We found, to our surprise, that this vessel, with the three others, one
of which was taken by another of our boats, were from Lima. They were
single-masted, about thirty tons burthen, twelve men each, and were
laden with copper, hides, wax, and cochineal, and had been out five
months. They were bound to Valentia, from which they were only one
day's sail when we intercepted them. Such is the fortune of war! This
gallant man, after a voyage of incredible labour and difficulty, would
in a few hours have embraced his family, and gladdened their hearts with
the produce of honest industry and successful enterprise; when, in a
moment, all their hopes were blasted by our legal murder and robbery;
and our prize-money came to our pockets with the tears, if not the
curses, of the widow and the orphan!

From some information which the captain obtained in the prize, he was
induced to stand over towards the Balearic Islands. We made Ivica, and
stood past it; then ran for Palma Bay, in the island of Majorca; here we
found nothing, to our great disappointment, and continued our course
round the island.

An event occurred here, so singular as scarcely to be credible; but the
fact is well attested, as there were others who witnessed it beside
myself. The water was