accepted this offer, and left England early in 1816 for
Valparaiso, but the Royalists having regained possession of that
place, he could not enter it until 1817. He afterwards held a
commission in the Chilian service, under Lord Cochrane, and was
made a lieutenant in it in consequence of his gallantry in the
cutting out of the Spanish frigate _Esmeralda_, of 40 guns, from
under the batteries of Callao, and during a severe conflict with a
Spanish gun brig near Arauco, a fortress in Chili. In the latter
encounter Mr. Nobbs was in command of a craft which sustained a
loss in killed and wounded of 48 men out of 64, and was taken
prisoner with the survivors by the troops of the adventurous
robber General Benevideis. The 16 captives were all shot with the
exception of Lieutenant Nobbs and three English seamen; these four
saw their fellow prisoners led out from time to time, and heard
the reports of the muskets that disposed of them. Ever afterwards
he retained a vivid memory of that dreadful fusillade. Having
remained for three weeks under sentence of death, he and his
countrymen were unexpectedly exchanged for four officers attached
to Benevideis' army. Mr. Nobbs then left the Chilian service, and
in 1822 went to Naples. In his passage from that city to Messina
in a Neapolitan ship, she foundered off the Lipari Islands; and,
with the loss of everything, he reached Messina in one of the
ship's boats. In May, 1823, he returned to London in the
_Crescent_; and in the same year he sailed to Sierra Leone as
chief mate of the _Gambia_, but of 19 persons who went out in that
vessel none but the captain, Mr. Nobbs, and two men of colour
lived to return. In June, 1824, he again went to Sierra Leone,
now as commander of the same craft, and was six weeks on shore ill
of fever, but it pleased God to restore him to health in time to
return with her; and he resigned command on his reaching England.