declaring, that he would not conceal so atrocious an act on their arrival at Cumana. In consequence of this remonstrance, the Portuguese countermanded his sanguinary order, but carried the Eagle, with her crew and passengers, first to Carupano and then to Cumana, where the vessel was condemned as lawful prize previous to their being set at liberty.
Many letters passed between Captain Lloyd and Don Antonio Tobar, governor of Cumana, on the subject of this piracy and murder; the one energetically demanding retributive justice, the other declaring his inability to punish Nieves, as a Spanish tribunal had already investigated the case, and declared him innocent. The infamous wretch, however, was subsequently caught in the act of committing depredations upon the royalists also, and his captor, the Spanish Commodore Laborde, having been informed by Captain Lloyd, of his former conduct, immediately arraigned him before the superior court of admiralty at Puerto Cabello, where he was at length sentenced to expiate his crimes on the scaffold.
In March, 1821, the Esk, when running between the island of Margaritta and the main, with a pilot[1] on board, both leads going, and look-out men aloft, struck on a bank of coral and hard sand, near Point Avara, where she lay, beating heavily for 48 hours, during which time, by the assistance of small vessels from Cumana, all her guns and stores were got out, and she was lightened sufficiently to be hove off, by the chain cable brought to the capstan, after the messenger and all other purchases had given way. From the peculiarity of her construction, she did not make any water for several hours afterwards, and then but very little; however it was thought advisable to heave her down at Antigua, when the main keel was found rubbed off nearly its whole length, and great part of the dead wood entirely crushed[2].
