across the Commerciante’s bow like an arrow, he was soon out of sight. On the following day, this lugger was captured by a British cruiser, and proved to be a privateer of 14 guns, full of men. On the 14th, Mr. Woollnough, who then had not been in bed for seventeen nights, arrived safely at St. Helens.
Previous to his re-joining the Agamemnon, in South America, Mr. Woollnough was successively transferred, as supernumerary, to the Resolution 74, Captain George Burlton; Hibernia 110, bearing the flag of Sir Charles Cotton; Minotaur 74, Captain Norborne Thompson; Royal William, flag-ship at Spithead; President frigate. Captain Adam Mackenzie; and Lightning sloop, Captain Bentinck C. Doyle; in which latter ship he arrived at Rio Janeiro, about Sept. 1808.
The Brazilian station, though interesting at first, from its novelty, was altogether an inactive one. The representative of the House of Braganza, who had recently emigrated from Portugal with his family and court, dreaded to have any of the British squadron go to sea. The Agamemnon, however, had one cruise, during which the situation of Trinidad and the rocks of Martin Vaz was correctly ascertained. On Trinidad were found seven men, who stated that they belonged to an American whaler, and had landed on the island eighteen months before, for the purpose of burying their legs in the earth, as a remedy for the scurvy; that it had come on to blow, and, there being no anchorage, their ship had been blown off, leaving them behind. They had built themselves a hut, just sufficient to shelter them from the weather; and they had subsisted on the flesh of goats and fish, the former of which are numerous on the island, and tame; the fish they caught with their hands among the rocks; eggs also they obtained in abundance. Their boat was lying on the beach, but stove; they declined being taken off, as they said they had no doubt of their ship calling for them again, if she came on the coast. They appeared the very counterparts of De Foe’s “Robinson Crusoe,” clothed from head to foot in goat-skin dresses, with the hair outwards; and their beards
