However, having now settled a correspondence with the
gun room, they lowered down a bucket out of the cabin window, into which
the gunner, out of one of the gun-room ports, 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 amongst
the Indians on the quarter-deck, at first without effect. But at last
Mindinuetta had the good fortune to shoot Orellana dead on the spot; on
which his faithful companions, abandoning all thoughts of further
resistance, instantly leaped into the sea, where they every man perished.
Thus was this insurrection quelled, and the possession of the
quarter-deck regained, after it had been full two hours in the power of
this great and daring chief and his gallant and unhappy countrymen.
Pizarro, having escaped this imminent peril, steered for Europe, and
arrived safe on the coast of Galicia* in the beginning of the year 1746,
after having been absent between four and five years.
(*Note. Galicia is the north-western province of Spain.)
CHAPTER 3.
FROM MADEIRA TO ST. CATHERINE'S--UNHEALTHINESS OF THE SQUADRON.
On the 3rd of November we weighed from Madeira.
On the 20th the captains of the squadron represented to the Commodore
that their ships' companies were very sickly, and that it was their own
opinion as well as their surgeons' that it would tend to the preservation
of the men to let in more air between decks; but that their ships were so
deep they could not possibly open their lower ports.
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