carrying twice as many guns as the other and more than twice the number of men, had sailed past and that the Duchess and Marquis were pursuing and keeping up a running fight. Rogers, having secured his prisoners, immediately flung his sails to the breeze and started in chase. After running all night and a portion of the next day, he came up and engaged in the combat, which had been very unequally maintained by his consorts. But the Spaniards were well prepared and fought with desperate valor. This was partly due, as it afterwards appeared, to the fact that a number of the men on board had formerly been pirates and were accustomed to desperate encounters, but principally to the spirit of the gunner, an unnamed hero of extraordinary courage, who had not only taken every precaution to put his vessel in good trim for the fight, but compelled his associates to keep up the conflict by stationing himself in the powder-room and taking an oath that he would blow the ship and all on board. into atoms rather than allow it to fall into the hands of the assailants.'

The chase and fight, which commenced on December 25, was kept up throughout the night and all the next day. At one time the Marquis engaged the Spaniard; at another the Duchess, and at another the Duke. Had they attacked together at the start, it is likely they would have overpowered the galleon; but at every new attack it seemed the gunner had called into requisition new measures of defense and had finally rigged up a netting deck, which rendered any attempt at boarding futile. Towards the end of the contest the Duke and Duchess were on opposite sides; and the shots of the one wer as dangerous to the other as to the Spaniards; so that the Duke was compelled to haul around and in doing so came into such close quarters that a fire-ball was thrown upon its deck, which exploded a quantity of powder and did much damage. Among other things it seriously burned several men and carried off a portion of one of Rogers' heels. The English had thirty men killed and wounded and their masts 1 Woodes Rogers, p. 331.

badly shattered. Of the Spaniards only two were known to have been killed, picked out of the maintop by musket balls; but their rigging was completely riddled and at least five hundred shots were placed in their hull. Though they had a "brave, lofty, new ship, the admiral of Manila," they were glad to be left alone and made no offer to turn upon or pursue the English when the latter drew off and made their way, in crippled condition, back to the port from which they had set out.' Arrived there, they immediately repaired their vessels; accepted the bonds of Monsieur Pichberty for six thousand dollars, payable in London, as ransom; released their hostages and prisoners, and sailed away, carrying their prize with them. They proceeded to the Ladrones; thence to Batavia in Java; thence to the Cape of Good Hope, from which they sailed in company with a Dutch fleet, and in October 1711 reached England.

From first to last Rogers was in the neighborhood of Cape San Lucas upwards of two months. He, however, saw but little of the country. The account he gives of the natives, was derived almost exclusively from some of his men, who had been sent ashore to look for fresh water. These men, as their boat approached the land, were met by Indians, who paddled out to them on small rafts, called "bark logs," and by their actions and demeanor extended a hearty welcome. The surf being rough, they took the English sailors on their floats and throwing themselves into the water guided them through the breakers to the beach. They then conducted. them, an Indian on each side of an Englishman, up the bank and through a narrow path to their huts, which were about a quarter of a mile distant. There the English found a dull musician rubbing two jagged sticks across each other and humming a song, apparently in honor of their arrival. They were next invited to squat upon the ground and presented with broiled fish. After partaking of a scanty repast thus offered, they were escorted back in the same manner they had come, with the addition of the music, such as it was, and 1 Woodes Rogers, 296–302

thence through the surf again to their boat. Nothing was seen of any European commodities; not a word of Spanish was heard spoken. With the exception of fish and a few wild fruits, seeds and roots, the Indians appeared to have nothing to cat; they were quite naked, they had no property except some curious implements, specimens of which were "preserved to show what shifts may be made;" they were in fine "the poorest wretches in nature"1

In further description of the Indians, Rogers says they were, though old and miserably wrinkled, large of limb, straight and tall. Their hair was black and so long that it hung down to their thighs. Their language was as unpleasant as their aspect, being harsh and broad and so pronounced as if their words choked them. Some wore necklaces and bracelets of pearls, which were notched and fastened with strings of grass, intermixed with red berries, sticks and pieces of shell; and these they seemed to prefer to the colored beads and toys offered them by the English. The only European articles they seemed to prize were knives, their own cutting instruments being made exclusively of sharks' teeth. Even knives they did not sufficiently covet, or else they were too honest, to steal; the cooper's and carpenter's tools, when carelessly left ashore, were always found in their places untouched. Their houses were made of brush and grass, very low and insufficient to keep out wind and rain. There was no cultivation of any kind and no store of provisions on hand. They seemed to pay a sort of respect to one man, whose head was adorned with feathers; but as far as could be seen they had all things in common; so much so that if one received a knife he handed it to any other that stood near him. Most of the time they stood or sat or lay around doing nothing, solicitous only for a present subsistence and careless of the future. But in one or two respects they exhibited wonderful skill and agility. They could shoot flying birds with their arrows and they were expert fishermen and astɔnishing divers. Rogers threw old rusty knives, one after the 1 Woodes Rogers, 284, 285.

other, into deep water and they seldom missed catching them before they sank more than three or four fathoms Some of the sailors said they saw an Indian dive with a wooden spear and, whilst under water, stick up his instrument with a fish on the point of it, which was taken off by another who accompanied him on a raft.

TH

CHAPTER XI.

SHELVOCKE.

HE only other English privateersinan of note, that touched on the coast of California, though there were various others who sailed into the Pacific and depredated upon the Spaniards, was Captain George Shelvocke. He had been a lieutenant in the English navy. On this occasion he was fitted out, together with Captain John Clipperton, by an English company, known as the Gentlemen Adventurers. The two, each in command of a separate ship, sailed from Plymouth on February 13, 1719; but, soon after leaving port, Shelvocke seized the welcome occasion of a storm to separate from Clipperton; and thenceforward each pursued an independent course. Though they met a number of times afterwards in the Pacific, the result was invariably disagreement and quarrel and never anything approaching the co-operation so much needed under the circumstances. Far from having the resolute and commanding spirit of a Drake, the strong and determined energy of a Cavendish or the unremitting, indefatigable tact of a Rogers, Shelvocke was a bickerer and a blusterer; and his vessel appears to have been a scene of almost continual dissension and disobedience.

A notorious fellow, of morose and gloomy disposition, named Simon Hatley, was first officer or mate on board Shelvocke's ship. He had previously been in the South Sea with Captain Woodes Rogers 1and from that fact presumed to know more about the navigation of the waters to which they were bound than his superior and to dispute with him the conduct

1 Woodes Rogers, 207, 208.