In February 1807, Cornwallis, under the command of Johnston, was ordered on a cruise against Spanish shipping and ports on the west coast of South America. Johnston used Port Jackson as a base for refreshment and re-supply before proceeding on his cruise between May and October 1807. Cornwallis sailed first to Juan Fernandez, then cruised northward along the coasts of Chile, Peru, Panama, and Mexico, capturing 17 vessels, most of them small, two of which were sent as prizes to Port Jackson. One of them, the re-captured South Sea whaler Atlantic, was found to be too unseaworthy for a Pacific crossing; her captors scuttled her off Punta Mala (Panama) on 7 September. The brig Rosalía, of 375 tons, was captured at the Peruvian port of Ilo on 13 July. Cornwallis took her to Pisco with other prizes, and then dispatched her to Port Jackson on 17 July with seven men on board under the command of Lieutenant John Garland, Cornwallis's master. Rosalía was wrecked on the Minerva Reefs, 1,300 kilometres from Norfolk Island. The survivors then sailed to Norfolk Island without chart or quadrant. This was a feat of navigation that ranked with that of William Bligh from Tofua to Kupang in 's launch in 1789, or that of William and Mary Bryant and their companions from Port Jackson to Kupang in a cutter in 1792. The Calcutta Gazette of 25 February 1808 reported the presence of the Cornwallis at Malacca the previous month, and said that: Captain Johnson [sic] was returned from a cruize of upwards of nine months, during which time he had proceeded along the coast of South America; had been at New Holland, Owyhee and other islands in the South Sea. He had destroyed near 30 vessels, and had captured three, which he left at Port Jackson.