On the 4th of April, in calm weather, but with a very heavy sea, the ship rolled so much that her main-mast came by the board, and was soon after followed by the fore and mizen masts, after which they had to cut away the boltsprit, to diminish, if possible, the leakage forwards.  By this time two hundred and fifty of the men had perished by hunger and fatigue.  Those who were capable of working at the pumps, at which every officer took his turn without exception, were only allowed an ounce and a half of biscuit daily; while those who were weak and sickly, so that they could not assist in this necessary labour, had no more than one ounce of wheat.  It was common for the men to fall down dead at the pumps, and all they could muster for duty, including the officers, was from eighty to an hundred men.

The S.W. wind blew so fresh for some days after they lost their masts, that they could not set up jury-masts; so that they were obliged to drive like a wreck, between the latitude of 32 deg. and 38 deg.  S. till the 24th of April, when they made the coast of Brazil at Rio de Patas, ten leagues to the southward of the island of St Catharines.  They came here to an anchor, the captain being very desirous of proceeding to St Catharines, in order to save the hull of the ship, with her guns and stores:  But the crew instantly left off pumping, and all in one voice cried out, On shore! on shore! enraged at the hardships they had suffered and the numbers they had lost, there being at this time thirty dead bodies lying on the deck.  Thus the captain was obliged to run the ship directly to the land, where she parted and sunk five days after, with all her stores and furniture; but the remainder of the crew, whom hunger and fatigue had spared, to the number of four hundred, got safe on shore.

From this account of the adventures and catastrophe of the Guiapuscoa, we may form some conjecture of the manner in which the Hermiona was lost, and of the distresses endured by the three remaining ships of the squadron which got into the Rio Plata.  These last being in great want of masts, yards, rigging, and all kinds of naval stores, and having no supply at Buenos Ayres or any of the neighbouring settlements, Pizarro dispatched an advice-boat with a letter of credit to Rio de Janeiro, to purchase what was wanting from the Portuguese.  He sent at the same time an express across the continent to St Jago de Chili, to be thence forwarded to the viceroy of Peru, informing him of the disasters that had befallen his squadron, and desiring a remittance of two hundred thousand dollars from the royal chest at Lima, to enable him to refit and victual his remaining ships, that he might be again in condition to attempt the passage to the South-Sea as soon as the season of the year should be more favourable.  It is mentioned by the Spaniards, as a most extraordinary circumstance, that, though then the depth of winter, when the Cordilleras are esteemed impassable on account of the snow, the Indian who was charged with this express was only thirteen days on his journey from Buenos Ayres to St Jago in Chili, though the distance is three hundred Spanish leagues, near forty of which are among the snows and precipices of the Cordilleras.