But the raiders took something else from the town. Within ten days of leaving the hot and humid area, Selkirk's hospital ship was caring for 180 seamen ill with tropical fever. Fortunately, the Increase's captain escaped the sickness.
***
In November 1709, keeping to his timetable, Rogers and his squadron waited off the coast of Baja California. The three privateers formed a patrol line through which the Manila galleon would have to sail to reach the port of Acapulco. The Duchess, Duke, and Marquiss cruised fifteen, thirty, and forty-five miles off shore. Selkirk, now in command of the Joseph, was assigned to carry messages among the three.
On November 7 Rogers wrote in his journal: "Sir Thomas Cavendish, in Queen Elizabeth's time, took the Manila ship in this place on the 4th of November."
He was referring to the only capture of a Manila galleon, the Santa Ana, in 1587.
A two-masted ship, a "Manila galleon," was the largest and richest merchant vessel sailing the oceans. In June of each year since 1565, a Manila galleon set out from Manila in the Philippine Islands, bound for Acapulco, Mexico. Each treasure ship carried chests of gold and exotic trade goods from India, China, and Japan.
In Acapulco a galleon unloaded its treasure onto wagons, which then traveled overland to ports on the Gulf of Mexico. There the cargo was reloaded on ships bound for Spain.
To protect its valuable cargo, a Manila galleon mounted forty to eighty heavy guns. The most powerful was a thirty-two-pounder. At close range it could send iron shot the size of coconuts smashing through two feet of solid oak.
Rogers knew a galleon was a floating fortress. "These large ships are built at Manila with excellent timber that will not splinter. They have very thick sides, much stronger than we build in Europe."
He also knew that, years earlier, a Manila galleon had fought off a fleet of fourteen Dutch privateers. The galleon sailed victoriously away from the battle, ninety cannonballs embedded like raisins in its hull. The defeated Dutch fleet slunk away with broken masts, torn sails, and seawater pouring through holes from the galleon's cannonballs in their sides.
***
By mid-December the galleon had still not arrived. The patrols went ceaselessly on, day after day. The Marquiss had to leave the picket line for repairs. She sailed for Port Segura (probably today's San Lucas on the southern tip of Baja California). The tiny Spanish settlement offered a harbor protected from wind and waves. Cannons on the Marquiss probably assured repairs could be carried out peacefully. The Duke and Duchess maintained the patrol, sailing back and forth, keeping watch.
On December 21 at nine o'clock in the morning, a lookout on the Duke cried, "A sail!" There she was, the Manila galleon, heading south for Acapulco, white sails bending to the wind, proud and bold.
Selkirk in the Joseph began tracking the lumbering treasure ship, staying just out of range of the big guns. Using signal lanterns at night, he kept the Duke and Duchess informed of the galleon's position. Rogers recorded: "[The] Duchess pass'd by her at night, and she fired 2 shot at [the galleon] but they return'd none."
In the morning Rogers gathered the crew around the mainmast and led them in prayer. Cups of hot chocolate were then distributed from a kettle on deck—the Duke had run out of rum. The same ceremony was taking place on the far-off Duchess, but she was becalmed. No wind moved her toward the galleon.
Sighting the galleon through his spyglass, Rogers saw "barrels hanging at each yard-arm, that looked like powder barrels, to deter us from boarding 'em. About 8 a clock we began to engage her by our selves."
Rogers's smaller and faster Duke came up behind, firing cannon shot into the galleon's stern, aiming at the exposed rudder, which steered the huge ship. The galleon replied with two small cannons mounted on the rail—stern chasers—but their aim was off. No shots hit the charging raider.
Rogers then drove the Duke along the big ship's side. Cannonballs splintered the Duke's deck, but the Spanish gunners "did not ply their great guns half as fast as we did."
Sharpshooters high in the Duke's rigging picked off Spanish gunners on the galleon's deck.
After a three-hour battle the galleon's flag suddenly dropped. Surrender!
A crew from Duke boarded the galleon. They found the Spanish sailors, after their six-month cruise from Manila, suffering from scurvy. Food and water were scarce. The Duke's boarding party herded the crew below decks, then worked the big galleon to Port Segura. The Duke, the Duchess, and Selkirk's Joseph followed. They found the Marquiss finishing repairs.
Nine Spanish seamen had been killed in the battle, ten wounded, "and several blown up and burnt with powder." But on Duke only two had been wounded. One was Rogers. A bullet from a Spanish sharpshooter had hit his left jaw.