ten
buccaneer ships in the bay of Panama, but dared not give them battle. The
war between France and England after 1688 dissolved the alliance between
the French and English buccaneers; and the last conspicuous event in
their history was the capture of Cartagena in 1697. Soon after this date
they disappeared as an organised body, though for many years members of
the band remained as pirates in the South Seas.)

Goats' flesh being scarce, we rarely being able to kill above one a day,
and our people growing tired of fish (which abounds at this place), they
at last condescended to eat seals, which by degrees they came to relish,
and called it lamb. But there is another amphibious creature to be met
with here, called a sea-lion, that bears some resemblance to a seal,
though it is much larger. This, too, we ate, under the denomination of
beef. In general there was no difficulty in killing them, for they were
incapable either of escaping or resisting, their motion being the most
unwieldy that can be conceived, their blubber, all the time they were
moving, being agitated in large waves under their skins. However, a
sailor one day being carelessly employed in skinning a young sea-lion,
the female from which he had taken it came upon him unperceived, and
getting his head in her mouth, she with her teeth scored his skull in
notches in many places, and thereby wounded him so desperately that
though all possible care was taken of him, he died in a few days.

CHAPTER 10.
REAPPEARANCE OF THE GLOUCESTER--DISTRESS ON BOARD--HER EFFORTS TO
ENTER THE BAY.

The arrival of the Trial sloop at this island so soon after we came there
ourselves gave us great hopes of being speedily joined by the rest of the
squadron; and we were for some days continually looking out in
expectation of their coming in sight. But near a fortnight being elapsed
without any of them having appeared, we began to despair of ever meeting
them again.

RETURN OF THE GLOUCESTER.

But on the 21st of June some of our people, from an eminence on shore,
discerned a ship to leeward, with her courses even with the horizon.
However, after viewing her for a short time, the weather grew thick and
hazy, and they lost sight of her. On the 26th, towards noon, we discerned
a sail in the north-east quarter, which we conceived to be the very same
ship that had been seen before, and our conjectures proved true; and
about one o'clock she approached so near that we could disting