n board the Trial
perceived a light, which they chased till they arrived within gun shot,
and then Captain Saunders alarmed them unexpectedly with a broadside when
they flattered themselves they were got out of his reach. However, for
some time after, they still kept the same sail abroad, and it was not
observed that this first salute had made any impression on them; but just
as the Trial was preparing to repeat her broadside, the Spaniards crept
from their holes, lowered their sails, and submitted without any
opposition. She was one of the largest merchantmen employed in those
seas, being about six hundred tons burthen, and was called the
"Arranzazu". She was bound from Callao to Valparaiso, and had much the
same cargo with the Carmelo we had taken before, except that her silver
amounted only to about 5000 pounds sterling.

(*Note. Ave Maria (Hail Mary!) are the opening words of a Roman Catholic
prayer to the Virgin Mary.)

THE TRIAL DISABLED.

But to balance this success we had the misfortune to find that the Trial
had sprung her mainmast, and that her maintopmast had come by the board;
and as we were all of us standing to the eastward the next morning, with
a fresh gale at south, she had the additional ill-luck to spring her
foremast; so that now she had not a mast left on which she could carry
sail. These unhappy incidents were still further aggravated by the
impossibility we were just then under of assisting her; for the wind blew
so hard, and raised such a hollow sea, that we could not venture to hoist
out our boat, and consequently could have no communication with her; so
that we were obliged to lie to for the greatest part of forty-eight hours
to attend her.

The weather proving somewhat more dominate on the 27th, we sent our boat
for the captain of the Trial, who, when he came on board us, produced an
instrument, signed by himself and all his officers, representing that the
sloop, besides being dismasted, was so very leaky in her hull that even
in moderate weather it was necessary to keep the pumps constantly at
work, and that they were then scarcely sufficient to keep her free; so
that in the late gale, though they had all been engaged at the pumps by
turns, yet the water had increased upon them; and, upon the whole, they
apprehended her to be at present so very defective that if they met with
much bad weather they must all inevitably perish, and therefore they
petitioned the Commodore to take some measur