by C. H. Layman
Being now arrived within a hundred miles of Buenos Aires, we begged of the chief to despatch one of his men to the Governor, to acquaint him of three English prisoners he had with him and to ask if he would redeem us. The chief did so, and the messenger on his return brought a certain pledge of fulfilling his promise, which was a gold-laced waistcoat. Next day we were told to get ourselves ready to go to Buenos Aires, and that he and some of his men would go with us. The hopes of once more seeing our fellow-Christians filled us with joy.
Chapter 15
Ransomed, but Far from Safe
Buenos Aires, May 1744. The survivors, now reduced to three, are brought in to the city and ransomed from the Indians by an English agent. They are confined aboard the Asia, Admiral Pizarro’s flagship, as prisoners of war, and make an unsuccessful attempt to escape. Midshipman Campbell joins the prisoners, having come from Santiago across the Andes with Admiral Pizarro, and the Asia sails for Spain. There is a dramatic attempt by eleven Indian slaves to take over the ship, which is very nearly successful. Campbell describes the same event.
From Midshipman Morris’s account
We were brought immediately before the Governor of Buenos Aires, who satisfied our Indian prince and paid him his ransom, which was ninety dollars and a few trifles, and then dismissed him. We returned him our hearty thanks for his kindness towards us during our abode with him, in which time we were treated with greater humanity than we afterwards met in our long confinement on board of the flagship of the Spanish Admiral Pizarro.
After we had passed examination by the Governor and had given him a full account of our past misfortunes, we were dismissed for a short space upon parole. And here I should be very ungrateful if I did not do justice to the president of the English Assiento[6] house, Mr. Grey, by acknowledging that it was entirely owing to his compassion and kind intercession with the Governor that we were thus redeemed from the hands of the Indians, he offering to do it at his own charge. We were sent for several times before the Governor, and earnestly pressed to turn Catholics and serve the King of Spain; but our answer was that we were Protestants and true Englishmen, and hoped to die so. Many tempting offers were made to seduce us, but thank God we resisted them all.
When the Governor found all his efforts were of no effect, we were sent as prisoners of war on board the Asia, which lay then at Montevideo, about thirty leagues down the river, waiting for orders, and had lain there upwards of two years. This was the Spanish Admiral Pizarro’s ship, which, after an unsuccessful attempt to pass Cape Horn in order to be in the South Seas with her squadron before ours, was driven back by tempestuous weather, and obliged to put into the River Plate, having lost nearly half her crew. The Admiral had quitted her and gone overland to Chile.
We were confined on board the Asia above a year, with sixteen other English, in which time we were treated more like slaves than prisoners of war. Our business was to do all their nasty work: to swab and clean the decks fore and aft every morning; and after the work was done we were confined between decks, with a sentinel over us as if we had been criminals, with a poor allowance of victuals.
Our usage was so bad that we agreed, with the rest of the English prisoners, to attempt our liberty, though at the risk of our lives. Accordingly one night we escaped from our guard, intending to swim ashore, and travel to a Portuguese settlement on the north side of the river, as the ship lay within a quarter of a mile of the shore. Myself and one other got safe to land in safety, the rest were discovered before they got into the water. I was quite naked, and my comrade had a shirt wrapped round his head; but before we got half-way to the shore a gun was fired from the ship to alarm the town. We travelled until two in the morning, and then lay down among the rushes. The weather being very frosty, our feet swelled and full of thorns, we could travel no further. Soon after daylight we met with some men on horseback belonging to the plantations, to whom we surrendered ourselves, and they took us behind them to their house. The next day we were carried from thence by some soldiers who were in pursuit of us, and carried on board the ship, where we were put in the stocks, neck and heels, four hours every day for a fortnight.
At length we were informed of the Admiral’s arrival at Buenos Aires; who soon after came on board, and gave orders for refitting the ship in the best manner they could, being determined to carry her to Old Spain. But there was a great deficiency of hands, for which reason orders were given to impress what men they could at Montevideo. These, with eleven Indians whom the Spaniards had four months before taken prisoners in a skirmish and now designed for their row-galleys, were sent on board; and soon afterwards I had the pleasure of seeing my brother midshipman, Mr. Campbell,[7] who was lost in the Wager with us, but choosing to follow the fortune of Captain Cheap, arrived with him at Chile. He came by land from thence with some officers belonging to the Spanish Admiral, and arrived in March at Buenos Aires. In the latter end of October 1745 we sailed from Montevideo in the Asia, bound for Spain.
Three days after we sailed an affair happened on board, which was like to have proved fatal to the whole crew. About nine at night we were alarmed with the cry of a mutiny, and so indeed it proved; but such a one as would never have been suspected by any of the ship’s crew, or perhaps credited by posterity, if such a number of persons were still not living to attest the fact.[8] The Indians above mentioned were a chief named Orellana and ten of his followers, who belonged to a very powerful tribe which had committed great ravages in the neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. Now on board the Asia, they were treated with much insolence and barbarity by the Spaniards, the meanest officers among whom were accustomed to beat them on the slightest pretences, and sometimes only to show their superiority.
Orellana and his followers, though in appearance sufficiently patient and submissive, meditated a severe revenge for all these inhumanities. As he conversed very well in Spanish (these Indians having, in time of peace, a good intercourse with Buenos Aires), he affected to talk with such of the English as understood that language, and seemed very desirous of being informed how many Englishmen were on board, and which they were. As he knew that the English were as much enemies to the Spaniards as himself, he had doubtless an intention of disclosing his purpose to them, and making them partners in the scheme he had projected for revenging his wrongs and recovering his liberty. But having sounded them at a distance, and not finding them so precipitate and vindictive as he expected, he proceeded no further with them; but resolved to trust alone to the resolution of his ten faithful followers. These, it should seem, readily engaged to observe his directions, and to execute whatever commands he gave them.
Having agreed on the measures necessary to be taken, they first furnished themselves with Dutch knives, sharp at the point, which being the common knives used in the ship, they found no difficulty in procuring. Besides this, they employed their leisure in secretly cutting out thongs from raw hides, of which there were great numbers on board, and in fixing to each end of these thongs the double-headed shot of the small quarterdeck guns. This, when swung around their heads according to the practice of their country, was a most mischievous weapon, in the use of which the Indians are trained from their infancy, and consequently are extremely expert. These particulars being in good forwardness, the execution of their scheme was perhaps precipitated by a particular outrage committed on Orellana himself. For one of the officers, who was a very brutal fellow, ordered Orellana aloft, which he was incapable of performing, and under pretence of his disobedience beat him with such violence that he left him bleeding on the deck, and stupefied for some time with his bruises and wounds. This usage undoubtedly heightened his thirst for revenge, and made him eager and impatient till the means of executing it were in his power; so that within a day or two after this incident he and his followers opened their desperate resolves in the ensuing manner.
It was about nine in the evening, when many of the principal officers were on the quarterdeck, indulging in the freshness of the night air. The waist of th
e ship was filled with live cattle, and the forecastle was manned with its customary watch. Orellana and his companions under cover of the night, having prepared their weapons and thrown off their trousers and the more cumbrous part of their dress, came altogether on the quarterdeck and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The Boatswain immediately reprimanded them, and ordered them to be gone. On this Orellana spoke to his followers in his native language, and four of them drew off, two towards each gangway, and the chief and the six remaining Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the quarterdeck. When the detached Indians had taken possession of the gangway, Orellana placed his hands hollow to his mouth, and bellowed out the war cry used by these savages, which is the harshest and most terrifying sound known in nature. This hideous yell was the signal for beginning the massacre; for on this they all drew their knives, and brandished their prepared double-headed shot; and the six with their chief who remained on the quarterdeck immediately fell on the Spaniards, who were intermingled with them, and laid near 40 of them at their feet; of which about 20 were killed on the spot, and the rest disabled.
Many of the officers in the beginning of the tumult pushed into the great cabin, where they put out the lights, and barricaded the door; and of the others, who had avoided the first fury of the Indians, some endeavoured to escape along the gangways into the forecastle; but the Indians, placed there on purpose, stabbed the greatest part of them as they attempted to pass by, or forced them off the gangways into the waist. Others threw themselves voluntarily over the barricades into the waist and thought themselves happy to lie concealed among the cattle. But the greatest part escaped up the main shrouds and sheltered themselves either in tops or rigging. And though the Indians attacked only the quarterdeck, yet the watch in the forecastle, finding their communication cast off and being terrified by the wounds of the few who, not being killed on the spot, had strength sufficient to force their passage along the gangways, and not knowing either who their enemies were, or what were their numbers, they likewise gave all over for lost, and in great confusion ran up into the rigging of the foremast and bowsprit.
Thus these eleven Indians, with a resolution perhaps without example, possessed themselves almost in an instant of the quarterdeck of a ship mounting 66 guns, with a crew of near 500 men, and continued in peaceable possession of this post a considerable time. As for supporting the officers in the great cabin (among whom were Pizarro and Mindinuetta[9]) the crew between decks and those who had escaped into the tops and rigging were only anxious for their own safety, and were for a long time incapable of forming any project for suppressing the insurrection and recovering the possession of the ship. It is true, the yells of the Indians, the groans of the wounded, and the confused clamours of the crew, all heightened by the obscurity of the night, had at first greatly magnified their danger and had filled them with the imaginary terrors which darkness, disorder, and an ignorance of the real strength of an enemy, never fail to produce. For as the Spaniards were sensible of the disaffection of their pressed hands, and were also conscious of their barbarity to their prisoners, they imagined the conspiracy was general, and considered their own destruction as certain. It was said that some of them had taken the resolution of leaping into the sea, but were prevented by their companions.
However, when the Indians had entirely cleared the quarterdeck, the tumult in a great measure subsided; for those who had escaped were kept silent by their fears and the Indians were incapable of pursuing them to renew the disorder. Orellana, when he saw himself master of the quarterdeck, broke open the arms chest, which on a slight suspicion of mutiny had been ordered there a few days before, as to a place of the greatest security. Here he took it for granted that he should find cutlasses sufficient for himself and his companions, in the use of which they were all extremely skilful; and with these it was imagined they purposed to force the great cabin. But on opening the chest there appeared nothing but firearms, which to them were of no use. There were indeed cutlasses in the chest but they were hidden by the firearms being laid over them. This was a sensible disappointment to them.
By this time Pizarro and his companions in the great cabin were capable of conversing aloud through the cabin windows and portholes with those in the gunroom and between decks; and from hence they learnt that the English (whom they principally suspected) were all safe below, and had not meddled in this mutiny. By other particulars they at last discovered that none were concerned in it but Orellana and his people. On this Pizarro and the officers resolved to attack them on the quarterdeck before any of the discontented on board should so far recover their first surprise as to reflect on the facility and certainty of seizing the ship by a junction with the Indians in the present emergency.
With this in view Pizarro got together what arms were in the cabin, and distributed them to those who were with him; but there were no other firearms to be met with but pistols, and for these they had neither powder nor ball. However having now settled a correspondence with the gunroom, they lowered down a bucket out of the cabin window, into which the Gunner put a quantity of pistol cartridges. When they had thus procured ammunition and had loaded their pistols, they set the cabin door partly open, and fired some shot among the Indians on the quarterdeck, at first without effect; but at last Mindinuetta, whom we have mentioned, had the good fortune to shoot Orellana dead on the spot. On which his faithful companions, abandoning all thoughts of further resistance, instantly leapt into the sea, and every man perished. Thus was this insurrection quelled and the possession of the quarterdeck regained, after it had been full two hours in the power of this great and daring chief, and his gallant and unhappy countrymen.
Midshipman Campbell has also left an account of this dramatic incident, and his version, in which he gives himself a starring role, is questionable in that his heroics have not been mentioned by Morris at all.
From Midshipman Campbell’s account
17th October 1745, being got out of sight of land, about 9 o’clock at night as I was going to bed, something fell down upon the quarterdeck, which as the ship was in a very bad condition I imagined was one of her masts or yards carried away, of which I had all along been apprehensive. But the noise being repeated and growing louder, I got up to see what was the matter. As I was going up the after ladder, I was saluted with a blow on the head which knocked me down. Soon after I saw a soldier drop down dead. All the ship’s company were now in an uproar, crying out, “A mutiny! A mutiny.” Hereupon I went to my berth, and sat down awaiting the issue.
At last seeing several officers and men wounded, while others were killed outright, I inquired the cause of so much bloodshed, and was informed that twelve Indians from the plains of Buenos Aires, whom the Spaniards had taken prisoners and were carrying to Spain for galley slaves, had risen upon their captors, and seemed as if resolved to be cut to pieces rather than be carried into slavery. Hearing this I went on the forecastle, where I found the Irish and Scots captains with most of the Spanish officers, all in confusion. By this time the twelve Indians had made themselves masters of the quarterdeck, and not a Spaniard dared attack them. Fearing they would set fire to the ship, which they might easily have done, all the nettings on the quarterdeck being full of hay for the cattle which were on board, I therefore proposed to go on the quarterdeck, and attack them sword in hand. I was bravely seconded by one of the Irish officers, who though an old man had as much courage as the youngest aboard. Followed by a few others, we attacked both gangways at once, pressed the Indians hard, and killed their Captain and one other.
Their Captain (whom they called a king, and whose name was Gallidana) was a very brave fellow; during the whole action he continually encouraged his men by putting his hand to his mouth and making the noise they called the war-whoop; and crying out, “We are brave Indians but the Spaniards are poltroons,” or words to that effect. As long as he spoke, his men stood their ground, though attacked two ways at once; but when he fell, as soon as his voice ceased they all got on the rails of th
e quarterdeck and jumped overboard crying out, “Though you have killed our king you shan’t have the pleasure of killing us.”
The enemy having thus fled the field, the Spaniards began to look after their dead and wounded. They found eleven men slain outright, among whom were the master of the ship and two mates. Thirty eight were wounded, five of whom died of their wounds.[10] A Jesuit also had his arm broken, and was other ways very much hurt. All this havoc did twelve Indians make (armed with nothing but knives, and some of the double-headed shot slung in the middle with which they knocked down the Spaniards) among 444 men that were aboard, among whom were 32 commissioned officers, most of them formerly belonging to other ships of Pizarro’s squadron which had been lost.
Chapter 16
Campbell’s Dubious Behaviour
They reach Spain, and Morris is treated very roughly by the Spaniards, but eventually returns home under a prisoner of war agreement. Very different is Campbell’s experience: he is sent for by the authorities in Madrid, and interviewed. He is given a passport home, and returns via Portugal to England, where he has to defend himself against the charge of having volunteered to join the Spanish navy.
From the accounts of midshipmen Morris and Campbell
Morris writes:
Towards the latter end of February 1746 we arrived at Corcubion, a harbour about five leagues south of Cape Finisterre, where we requested to be sent on shore as prisoners of war, but were told that we must all go in the ship to the Groyne.[11] Whereupon we went on the quarter-deck in a body, and told the Admiral that we would no longer be slaves on board. Next day we were sent ashore and confined fifteen days in a prison, with an allowance only of bread and water, chained together as criminals, till the ship sailed for the Groyne, when we were released from our dungeon and guarded to the Groyne by land with a file of musketeers. As soon as we arrived we were put into the guard-house for two days, and from thence sent to St Antonio’s Castle, which is on an island at the entrance of the harbour, a prison for thieves and felons. In this dismal place we were kept fourteen weeks among the worst of malefactors, till an order came from the court of Spain to send us to Portugal, allowing us a guide and a real per day.