These unhappy incidents were still further aggravated by the
impossibility we were just then under of assisting her; for the wind blew
so hard, and raised such a hollow sea, that we could not venture to hoist
out our boat, and consequently could have no communication with her; so
that we were obliged to lie to for the greatest part of forty-eight hours
to attend her.
The weather proving somewhat more dominate on the 27th, we sent our boat
for the captain of the Trial, who, when he came on board us, produced an
instrument, signed by himself and all his officers, representing that the
sloop, besides being dismasted, was so very leaky in her hull that even
in moderate weather it was necessary to keep the pumps constantly at
work, and that they were then scarcely sufficient to keep her free; so
that in the late gale, though they had all been engaged at the pumps by
turns, yet the water had increased upon them; and, upon the whole, they
apprehended her to be at present so very defective that if they met with
much bad weather they must all inevitably perish, and therefore they
petitioned the Commodore to take some measures for their future safety.
But the refitting of the Trial and the repairing of her defects was an
undertaking that in the present conjuncture greatly exceeded his power;
and besides, it would have been extreme imprudence in so critical a
juncture to have loitered away so much time as would have been necessary
for these operations. The Commodore, therefore, had no choice left him
but that of taking out her people and destroying her; but at the same
time, as he conceived it necessary for His Majesty's Service to keep up
the appearance of our force, he appointed the Trial's prize (which had
been often employed by the Viceroy of Peru as a man-of-war) to be a
frigate in His Majesty's Service, manning her with the Trial's crew and
giving new commissions to the captain and all the inferior officers
accordingly.
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