We had at this time very little wind, so that all the
boats were employed to tow us out of the bay; and even what wind there
was lasted only long enough to give us an offing of two or three leagues,
when it flattened to a calm. The night coming on, we lost sight of the
chase, and were extremely impatient for the return of daylight, in hopes
to find that she had been becalmed as well as we, though I must confess
that her greater distance from the land was a reasonable ground for
suspecting the contrary, as we indeed found in the morning, to our great
mortification; for though the weather continued perfectly clear, we had
no sight of the ship from the mast-head. But as we were now satisfied
that it was an enemy, and the first we had seen in these seas, we
resolved not to give over the search lightly; and a small breeze
springing up from the west-north-west, we got up our top-gallant masts
and yards, set all the sails, and steered to the south-east, in hopes of
retrieving our chase, which we imagined to be bound to Valparaiso. We
continued on this course all that day and the next; and then, not getting
sight of our chase, we gave over the pursuit, conceiving that by that
time she must in all probability have reached her port.
And now we prepared to return to Juan Fernandez, and hauled up to the
south-west with that view, having but very little wind till the 12th,
when, at three in the morning, there sprang up a fresh gale from the
west-south-west, and we tacked and stood to the north-west; and at
daybreak we were agreeably surprised with the sight of a sail on our
weather-bow, between four and five leagues distant.
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