CHAPTER I

THE RUN FROM THE COAST OF MEXICO TO THE LADRONES
OR MARIAN ISLANDS

When, on the 6th of May 1642, we left the coast of America, we stood to the S.W. with a view of meeting the N.E. tradewind, which the accounts of former writers taught us to expect at seventy or eighty leagues from the land. We had besides another reason for standing to the southward, which was the getting into the latitude of 13° or 14° north, that being the parallel where the Pacific Ocean is most usually crossed, and consequently where the navigation is esteemed the safest: this last purpose we had soon answered, being in a day or two sufficiently advanced to the south. But though we were at the same time more distant from the shore than we had presumed was necessary for the falling in with the trade-wind, yet in this particular we were most grievously disappointed, the wind still continuing to the westward, or at best variable. As the getting into the N.E. trade was to us a matter of the last consequence, we stood yet more to the southward, and made many experiments to meet with it; but all our efforts were for a long time unsuccessful; so that it was seven weeks from our leaving the coast before we got into the true trade-wind. This was an interval in which we had at first believed we should well-nigh have reached the eastermost parts of Asia; but we were so baffled with the contrary and variable winds, which for all that time perplexed us, that we were not as yet advanced above a fourth of the way. The delay alone would have been a sufficient mortification; but there were other circumstances attending it which rendered this situation not less terrible, and our apprehensions perhaps still greater, than in any of our past calamities. For our two ships were by this time extremely crazy; and many days had not passed before we discovered a spring in the fore-mast of the Centurion, which rounded about twenty-six inches of its circumference, and which was judged to be at least four inches deep. And no sooner had the carpenters secured this mast with fishing it, than the Gloucester made a signal of distress to inform us that she had a spring in her main-mast, twelve feet below the trussel trees; which appeared so dangerous that she could not carry any sail upon it. Our carpenters on a strict examination of this mast found it excessively rotten and decayed; and it being judged necessary to cut it down as low as it was defective, it was by this means reduced to nothing but a stump, which served only as a step to the top-mast. These accidents augmented our delay, and being added to our other distresses occasioned us great anxiety about our future safety. For though after our departure from Juan Fernandes we had enjoyed a most uninterrupted state of health, till our leaving the coast of Mexico, yet the scurvy now began to make fresh havock amongst our people: and we too well knew the effects of this disease by our former fatal experience to suppose that anything except a speedy passage could secure the greater part of our crew from being destroyed thereby. But as, after being seven weeks at sea, there did not appear any reasons that could persuade us we were nearer the trade-wind than when we set out, there was no ground for us to imagine that our passage would not prove at least three times as long as we at first expected; and consequently we had the melancholy prospect either of dying by the scurvy or of perishing with the ship for want of hands to navigate her. Indeed, several amongst us were willing to believe that in this warm climate, so different from what we felt in passing round Cape Horn, the violence of this disease, and its fatality, might be in some degree mitigated; as it had not been unusual to suppose that its particular virulence during that passage was in a great measure owing to the severity of the weather: but the ravage of the distemper, in our present circumstances, soon convinced us of the falsity of this speculation; as it likewise exploded certain other opinions which usually pass current about the cause and nature of this disease.

For it has been generally presumed that sufficient supplies of water and of fresh provisions are effectual preventives of this malady; but it happened that in the present case we had a considerable stock of fresh provisions on board, being the hogs and fowls which were taken at Paita; we besides almost daily caught great abundance of bonitos, dolphins, and albicores; and the unsettled season, which deprived us of the benefit of the trade-wind, proved extremely rainy; so that we were enabled to fill up our water-casks almost as fast as they were empty; and each man had five pints of water allowed him every day during the passage. But notwithstanding this plenty of water, notwithstanding that the fresh provisions were distributed amongst the sick, and the whole crew often fed upon fish; yet neither were the sick hereby relieved or the progress or malignity of the disease at all abated. Nor was it in these instances only that we found the general maxims upon this head defective: for tho' it has been usually esteemed a necessary piece of management to keep all ships where the crews are large as clean and airy between decks as possible; and it hath been believed by many that this particular alone, if well attended to, would prevent the appearance of the scurvy, or at least mitigate its virulence; yet we observed during the latter part of our run that, though we kept all our ports open and took uncommon pains in cleansing and sweetning the ships, the disease still raged with as much violence as ever; nor did its advancement seem to be thereby sensibly retarded.

However, I would not be understood to assert that fresh provisions, plenty of water, and a constant supply of sweet air between decks are matters of no moment: I am, on the contrary, well satisfied that they are all of them articles of great importance, and are doubtless extremely conducive to the health and vigour of a crew, and may in many cases prevent this fatal malady from taking place. All I have aimed at in what I have advanced is only to evince that, in some instances, both the cure and prevention of this malady is impossible to be effected by any management, or by the application of any remedies which can be made use of at sea. Indeed, I am myself fully persuaded that, when it has got to a certain head, there are no other means in nature for relieving the sick but carrying them on shore, or at least bringing them into the neighbourhood of the land. Perhaps a distinct and adequate knowledge of the source of this disease may never be discovered; but, in general, there is no difficulty in conceiving that, as a continued supply of fresh air is necessary to all animal life, and as this air is so particular a fluid that, without losing its elasticity, or any of its obvious properties, it may be rendered unfit for this purpose by the mixing with it some very subtle and otherwise imperceptible effluvia; it may be easily conceived, I say, that the steams arising from the ocean may have a tendency to render the air they are spread through less properly adapted to the support of the life of terrestrial animals, unless these steams are corrected by effluvia of another kind, which perhaps the land alone can afford.

To what hath been already said in relation to this disease, I shall add that our surgeon (who during our passage round Cape Horn had ascribed the mortality we suffered to the severity of the climate) exerted himself in the present run to the utmost: but he at last declared that all his measures were totally ineffectual, and did not in the least avail his patients. On this it was resolved by the commodore to try the success of two medicines which, just before his departure from England, were the subject of much discourse, I mean the pill and drop of Mr. Ward. For however violent the operations of these medicines are said to have sometimes proved, yet in the present instance, where, without some remedy, destruction seemed inevitable, the experiment at least was thought adviseable: and, therefore, one or both of them at different times were administred to persons in every stage of the distemper. Out of the numbers who took them, one, soon after swallowing the pill, was seized with a violent bleeding at the nose. He was before given over by the surgeon and lay almost at the point of death; but he immediately found himself much better, and continued to recover, tho' slowly, till we arrived on shore, which was near a fortnight after. A few others too were relieved for some days, but the disease returned again with as much virulence as ever. Though neither did these, nor the rest, who received no benefit, appear to be reduced to a worse condition than they would have been if they had taken nothing. The most remarkable property of these medicines, and what was obvious in almost every one that took them, was that they acted in proportion to the vigour of the patient; so that those who were within two or three days of dying were scarcely affected; and as the patient was differently advanced in the disease, the operation was either a gentle perspiration, an easy vomit, or a moderate purge: but if they were taken by one in full strength, they then produced all the forementioned effects with considerable violence, which sometimes continued for six or eight hours together with little intermission. However, let us return to the prosecution of our voyage.

I have already observed that a few days after our running off the coast of Mexico the Gloucester had her main-mast cut down to a stump, and we were obliged to fish our foremast; and that these misfortunes were greatly aggravated by our meeting with contrary and variable winds for near seven weeks. I shall now add that when we reached the trade-wind, and it settled between the north and the east, yet it seldom blew with so much strength that the Centurion might not have carried all her small sails abroad without the least danger; so that, had we been a single ship, we might have run down our longitude apace, and have arrived at the Ladrones soon enough to have recovered great numbers of our men who afterwards perished. But the Gloucester, by the loss of her main-mast, sailed so very heavily that we had seldom any more than our top-sails set, and yet were frequently obliged to lie to for her: and, I conceive, that on the whole we lost little less than a month by our attendance upon her, in consequence of the various mischances she encountered. During all this run it was remarkable that we were rarely many days together without seeing great numbers of birds; which is a proof that there are several islands, or at least rocks, scattered all along, at no very considerable distance from our track: but the frequency of these birds seem to ascertain that there are many more than have been hitherto discovered; for the most part of the birds we observed were such as are known to roost on shore; and the manner of their appearance sufficiently evinced that they came from some distant haunt every morning, and returned thither again in the evening, since we never saw them early or late; and the hour of their arrival and departure gradually varied, which we supposed was occasioned by our running nearer their haunts or getting farther from them.

The trade-wind continued to favour us, without any fluctuation, from the end of June till towards the end of July. But on the 26th of July, being then, as we esteemed, about three hundred leagues from the Ladrones, we met with a westerly wind, which did not come about again to the eastward in four days' time. This was a most dispiriting incident, as it at once damped all our hopes of speedy relief, especially too as it was attended with a vexatious accident to the Gloucester: for in one part of these four days the wind flatted to a calm, and the ships rolled very deep; by which means the Gloucester's forecap splitting, her fore top-mast came by the board, and broke her fore-yard directly in the slings. As she was hereby rendered incapable of making any sail for some time, we were under a necessity, as soon as a gale sprung up, to take her in tow; and near twenty of the healthiest and ablest of our seamen were removed from the duty of our own ship, and were continued eight or ten days together on board the Gloucester to assist in repairing her damages. But these things, mortifying as we thought them, were only the commencement of our disasters; for scarce had our people finished their business in the Gloucester before we met with a most violent storm from the western board, which obliged us to lie to. At the beginning of this storm our ship sprung a leak, and let in so much water that all our people, officers included, were constantly employed about the pumps: and the next day we had the vexation so see the Gloucester with her fore top-mast once more by the board. Nor was that the whole of her calamity, since whilst we were viewing her with great concern for this new distress, we saw her main top-mast, which had hitherto served her as a jury main-mast, share the same fate. This compleated our misfortunes, and rendered them without resource: for we knew the Gloucester's crew were so few and feeble that without our assistance they could not be relieved; whilst at the same time our sick were now so far increased, and those who remained in health so continually fatigued with the additional duty of our pumps, that it was impossible for us to lend them any aid. Indeed we were not as yet fully apprized of the deplorable situation of the Gloucester's crew; for when the storm abated, which during its continuance prevented all communication with them, the Gloucester bore up under our stern, and Captain Mitchel informed the commodore that besides the loss of his masts, which was all that was visible to us, the ship had then no less than seven feet of water in her hold, although his officers and men had been kept constantly at the pumps for the last twenty-four hours.

This new circumstance was indeed a most terrible accumulation to the other extraordinary distresses of the Gloucester, and required if possible the most speedy and vigorous assistance, which Captain Mitchel begged the commodore to afford him. But the debility of our people, and our own immediate preservation, rendered it impracticable for the commodore to comply with his request. All that could be done was to send our boat on board for a more particular account of the ship's condition, as it was soon suspected that the taking her people on board us, and then destroying her, was the only measure that could be prosecuted in the present emergency, both for the security of their lives and of our own.

Our boat soon returned with a representation of the state of the Gloucester, and of her several defects, signed by Captain Mitchel and all his officers; whence it appeared that she had sprung a leak by the stern post being loose, and working with every roll of the ship, and by two beams amidships being broken in the orlope, no part of which, as the carpenters reported, could possibly be repaired at sea; that both officers and men had wrought twenty-four hours at the pump without intermission, and were at length so fatigued that they could continue their labour no longer, but had been forced to desist, with seven feet of water in the hold, which covered all their casks, so that they could neither come at fresh water nor provision: that they had no mast standing, except the foremast, the mizen-mast, and the mizen top-mast, nor had they any spare masts to get up in the room of those they had lost: that the ship was, besides, extremely decayed in every part; for her knees and clamps were all become quite loose, and her upper works in general were so crazy that the quarter-deck was ready to drop down: that her crew was greatly reduced, as there remained alive on board her, officers included, no more than seventy-seven men, eighteen boys, and two prisoners, and that of this whole number only sixteen men and eleven boys were capable of keeping the deck, several of these too being very infirm.

The commodore, on the perusal of this melancholy representation, presently ordered them a supply of water and provisions, of which they seemed to be in the most pressing want, and at the same time sent his own carpenter on board them to examine into the truth of every particular; and it being found on the strictest enquiry that the preceding account was in no instance exaggerated, it plainly appeared there was no possibility of preserving the Gloucester any longer, as her leaks were irreparable, and the united hands on board both ships would not be able to free her, could we have spared the whole of our crew to her relief. What then could be resolved on, when it was the utmost we ourselves could do to manage our own pumps? Indeed there was no room for deliberation; the only step to be taken was the saving the lives of the few that remained on board the Gloucester, and the getting out of her as much as we could before she was destroyed. The commodore therefore immediately sent an order to Captain Mitchel to put his people on board the Centurion as expeditiously as he could, now the weather was calm and favourable, and to take out such stores as he could get at whilst the ship could be kept above water. And as our leak required less attention whilst the present easy weather continued, we sent our boats with as many men as we could spare to Captain Mitchel's assistance.

The removing the Gloucester's people on board us, and the getting out such stores as could most easily be come at, gave us full employment for two days. Mr. Anson was extremely desirous to have saved two of her cables and an anchor, but the ship rolled so much, and the men were so excessively fatigued, that they were incapable of effecting it; nay, it was even with the greatest difficulty that the prize-money which the Gloucester had taken in the South Seas was secured and sent on board the Centurion. However, the prize goods in the Gloucester, which amounted to several thousand pounds in value, and were principally the Centurion's property, were entirely lost; nor could any more provision be got out than five casks of flour, three of which were spoiled by the salt water. Their sick men, amounting to near seventy, were conveyed into the boats with as much care as the circumstances of that time would permit; but three or four of them expired as they were hoisting them into the Centurion.

It was the 15th of August, in the evening, before the Gloucester was cleared of everything that was proposed to be removed; and though the hold was now almost full of water, yet, as the carpenters were of opinion that she might still swim for some time, if the calm should continue and the water become smooth, it was resolved she should be burnt, as we knew not how little distant we might be at present from the island of Guam, which was in the possession of our enemies, to whom the wreck of such a ship would have been no contemptible acquisition. When she was set on fire, Captain Mitchel and his officers left her, and came on board the Centurion: and we immediately stood from the wreck, not without some apprehensions (as we had only a light breeze) that if she blew up soon the concussion of the air might damage our rigging; but she fortunately continued burning the whole night, so that though her guns fired successively as the flames reached them, yet it was six in the morning, when we were about four leagues distant, before she blew up. The report she made upon this occasion was but small, although the blast produced an exceeding black pillar of smoke, which shot up into the air to a very considerable height.

Thus perished his Majesty's ship the Gloucester. And now it might have been expected that, being freed from the embarrassments which her frequent disasters had involved us in, we should have proceeded on our way much brisker than we had hitherto done, especially as we had received some small addition to our strength by the taking on board the Gloucester's crew. However, we were soon taught that our anxieties were not yet to be relieved, and that, notwithstanding all we had already suffered, there remained much greater distresses which we were still to struggle with. For the late storm, which had proved so fatal to the Gloucester, had driven us to the northward of our intended course; and the current setting the same way, after the weather abated, had forced us yet a degree or two farther, so that we were now in 17-¼° of north latitude, instead of being in 13-½°, which was the parallel we proposed to keep, in order to reach the island of Guam. As it had been a perfect calm for some days since the cessation of the storm, and we were ignorant how near we were to the meridian of the Ladrones, though we supposed ourselves not to be far from it, we apprehended that we might be driven to the leeward of them by the current without discovering them. On this supposition, the only land we could make would be some of the eastern parts of Asia, where, if we could arrive, we should find the western monsoon in its full force, so that it would be impossible for the stoutest, best-manned ship to get in. Besides, this coast being between four and five hundred leagues distant from us, we, in our languishing circumstances, could expect no other than to be destroyed by the scurvy long before the most favourable gale could enable us to compleat so extensive a navigation. For our deaths were by this time extremely alarming, no day passing in which we did not bury eight or ten, and sometimes twelve, of our men; and those who had as yet continued healthy began to fall down apace. Indeed we made the best use we could of our present calm, by employing our carpenters in searching after the leak, which, notwithstanding the little wind we had, was now considerable. The carpenters at length discovered it to be in the gunner's fore store-room, where the water rushed in under the breast-hook on each side of the stern: but though they found where it was, they agreed it was impossible to stop it till they could come at it on the outside, which was evidently a matter not to be attempted till we should arrive in port. However, they did the best they could within board, and were fortunate enough to reduce it, which was a considerable relief to us.

We hitherto considered the calm which succeeded the storm, and which had now continued for some days, as a very great misfortune, since the currents were all the time driving us to the northward of our parallel, and we thereby risqued the missing of the Ladrones, which we at present conceived ourselves to be very near. But when a gale sprung up our condition was still worse; for it blew from the S.W., and consequently was directly opposed to the course we wanted to steer: and though it soon veered to the N.E., yet this served only to tantalize us, as it returned back again in a very short time to its old quarter. However, on the 22d of August we had the satisfaction to find that the current was shifted, and had set us to the southward; and the 23d, at daybreak, we were cheered with the discovery of two islands in the western board. This gave us all great joy, and raised our drooping spirits, for till then an universal dejection had seized us, and we almost despaired of ever seeing land again. The nearest of these islands, as we learnt afterwards, was Anatacan; this we judged to be full fifteen leagues from us; it seemed to be high land, though of an indifferent length. The other was the island of Serigan, which had rather the appearance of a rock than of a place we could hope to anchor at. We were extremely impatient to get in with the nearest island, where we expected to find anchoring ground and an opportunity of refreshing our sick. But the wind proved so variable all day, and there was so little of it that we advanced towards it but slowly; however, by the next morning we were got so far to the westward that we were in sight of a third island, which was that of Paxaros, and which is marked in the chart only as a rock. This was very small, and the land low, so that we had passed within less than a mile of it in the night without observing it. At noon, being then not four miles from the island of Anatacan, the boat was sent away to examine the anchoring ground and the produce of the place, and we were not a little solicitous for her return, as we conceived our fate to depend upon the report we should receive; for the other two islands were obviously enough incapable of furnishing us with any assistance, and we knew not that there were any besides which we could reach. In the evening the boat came back, and the crew informed us that there was no road for a ship to anchor in, the bottom being everywhere foul ground, and all except one small spot not less than fifty fathom in depth; that on that spot there was thirty fathom, though not above half a mile from the shore; and that the bank was steep too, and could not be depended on. They farther told us that they had landed on the island, not without some difficulty on account of the greatness of the swell; that they found the ground was everywhere covered with a kind of wild cane or rush; but that they met with no water, and did not believe the place to be inhabited, though the soil was good and abounded with groves of coconut trees.

The account of the impossibility of anchoring at this island occasioned a general melancholy on board, for we considered it as little less than the prelude to our destruction; and our despondency was increased by a disappointment we met with the succeeding night, when, as we were plying under top-sails, with an intention of getting nearer to the island, and of sending our boat on shore to load with coconuts for the refreshment of our sick, the wind proved squally, and blew so strong off shore, that we were driven too far to the southward to venture to send off our boat. And now the only possible circumstance that could secure the few which remained alive from perishing, was the accidental falling in with some other of the Ladrone Islands better prepared for our accommodation; but as our knowledge of these islands was extremely imperfect, we were to trust entirely to chance for our guidance; only as they are all of them usually laid down near the same meridian, and we conceived those we had already seen to be part of them, we concluded to stand to the southward, as the most probable means of discovering the rest. Thus, with the most gloomy persuasion of our approaching destruction, we stood from the island of Anatacan, having all of us the strongest apprehensions (and those not ill grounded) either of dying by the scurvy, or of being destroyed with the ship, which, for want of hands to work her pumps, might in a short time be expected to founder.

CHAPTER II

OUR ARRIVAL AT TINIAN, AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE ISLAND AND OF OUR PROCEEDINGS THERE TILL THE "CENTURION" DROVE OUT TO SEA

It was the 26th of August, 1742, in the morning, when we lost sight of the island of Anatacan, dreading that it was the last land we should ever fix our eyes on. But the next morning we discovered three other islands to the eastward, which were between ten and fourteen leagues distant from us. These were, as we afterwards learnt, the island of Saypan, Tinian, and Aguigan. We immediately steered towards Tinian, which was the middlemost of the three; but we had so much of calms and light airs, that though we were helped forwards by the currents, yet on the morrow, at daybreak, we had not advanced nearer than within five leagues of it. However, we kept on our course, and about ten o'clock we perceived a proa under sail to the southward between Tinian and Aguigan. As we imagined from hence that these islands were inhabited, and knew that the Spaniards had always a force at Guam, we took the necessary precautions for our own security: and endeavoured to prevent the enemy as much as possible from making an advantage of our present wretched circumstances, of which we feared they would be sufficiently informed by the manner of our working the ship. We therefore mustered all our hands who were capable of standing to their arms, and loaded our upper and quarter-deck guns with grape shot; and that we might the more readily procure some intelligence of the state of these islands, we showed Spanish colours, and hoisted a red flag at the fore top-mast-head, hoping thereby to give our ship the appearance of the Manila galeon, and to decoy some of the inhabitants on board us. Thus preparing ourselves, and standing towards the land, we were near enough, at three in the afternoon, to send the cutter on shore to find out a proper birth for the ship; and we soon perceived that a proa put off from the island to meet the cutter, fully persuaded, as we afterwards found, that we were the Manila ship. As we saw the cutter returning with the proa in tow, we instantly sent the pinnace to receive the proa and the prisoners, and to bring them on board, that the cutter might proceed on her errand. The pinnace came back with a Spaniard and four Indians, which were the people taken in the proa: and the Spaniard being immediately examined as to the produce and circumstances of this island of Tinian, his account of it surpassed even our most sanguine hopes. For he informed us that though it was uninhabited (which in itself, considering our present defenceless condition, was a convenience not to be despised), yet it wanted but few of the accommodations that could be expected in the most cultivated country. In particular, he assured us that there was plenty of very good water; that there were an incredible number of cattle, hogs, and poultry running wild on the island, all of them excellent in their kind; that the woods afforded sweet and sour oranges, limes, lemons, and coconuts in great abundance, besides a fruit peculiar to these islands, which served instead of bread; that from the quantity and goodness of the provisions produced here, the Spaniards at Guam made use of it as a store for supplying the garrison; and that he himself was a serjeant of that garrison, who was sent hither with twenty-two Indians to jerk beef, which he was to load for Guam on board a small bark of about fifteen tun, which lay at anchor near the shore.

This relation was received by us with inexpressible joy. Part of it we were ourselves able to verify on the spot, as we were by this time near enough to discover several numerous herds of cattle feeding in different places of the island; and we did not any ways doubt the rest of his narration, since the appearance of the shore prejudiced us greatly in its favour, and made us hope that not only our necessities might be there fully relieved, and our diseased recovered, but that, amidst those pleasing scenes which were then in view, we might procure ourselves some amusement and relaxation, after the numerous fatigues we had undergone. For the prospect of the country did by no means resemble that of an uninhabited and uncultivated place; but had much more the air of a magnificent plantation where large lawns and stately woods had been laid out together with great skill, and where the whole had been so artfully combined, and so judiciously adapted to the slopes of the hills, and the inequalities of the ground, as to produce a most striking effect, and to do honour to the invention of the contriver. Thus (an event not unlike what we had already seen) we were forced upon the most desirable and salutary measures by accidents which at first sight we considered as the greatest of misfortunes; for had we not been driven by the contrary winds and currents to the northward of our course (a circumstance which at that time gave us the most terrible apprehensions), we should, in all probability, never have arrived at this delightful island, and consequently we should have missed of that place where alone all our wants could be most amply relieved, our sick recovered, and our enfeebled crew once more refreshed, and enabled to put again to sea.

The Spanish serjeant, from whom we received the account of the island, having informed us that there were some Indians on shore under his command, employed in jerking beef, and that there was a bark at anchor to take it on board, we were desirous, if possible, to prevent the Indians from escaping, since they would certainly have given the Governor of Guam intelligence of our arrival: we therefore immediately dispatched the pinnace to secure the bark, as the serjeant told us that was the only embarkation on the place; and then about eight in the evening we let go our anchor in twenty-two fathom. But though it was almost calm, and whatever vigour and spirit was to be found on board was doubtless exerted to the utmost on this pleasing occasion, when, after having kept the sea for some months, we were going to take possession of this little paradise, yet we were full five hours in furling our sails. It is true we were somewhat weakened by the crews of the cutter and pinnace which were sent on shore; but it is not less true that, including those absent with the boats and some negroes and Indians prisoners, all the hands we could muster capable of standing at a gun amounted to no more than seventy-one, most of which too were incapable of duty except on the greatest emergencies. This, inconsiderable as it may appear, was the whole force we could collect in our present enfeebled condition from the united crews of the Centurion, the Gloucester, and the Tryal, which, when we departed from England, consisted all together of near a thousand hands.

When we had furled our sails, our people were allowed to repose themselves during the remainder of the night, to recover them from the fatigue they had undergone. But in the morning a party was sent on shore well armed, of which I myself was one, to make ourselves masters of the landing-place, since we were not certain what opposition might be made by the Indians on the island. We landed, however, without difficulty, for the Indians having perceived, by our seizure of the bark the night before, that we were enemies, they immediately fled into the woody parts of the island. We found on shore many huts which they had inhabited, and which saved us both the time and trouble of erecting tents. One of these huts, which the Indians made use offer a store-house, was very large, being twenty yards long and fifteen broad: this we immediately cleared of some bales of jerked beef which had been left in it, and converted it into an hospital for our sick, who as soon as the place was ready to receive them, were brought on shore, being in all a hundred and twenty-eight. Numbers of these were so very helpless that we were obliged to carry them from the boats to the hospital upon our shoulders, in which humane employment (as before at Juan Fernandes) the commodore himself, and every one of his officers, were engaged without distinction; and notwithstanding the extreme debility and the dying aspects of the greatest part of our sick, it is almost incredible how soon they began to feel the salutary influence of the land: for, though we buried twenty-one men on this and the preceding day, yet we did not lose above ten men more during the whole two months we staid here; but our diseased in general reaped so much benefit from the fruits of the island, particularly those of the acid kind, that in a week's time there were but few of them who were not so far recovered as to be able to move about without help.

Being now in some sort established at this place, we were enabled more distinctly to examine its qualities and productions; and that the reader may the better judge of our manner of life here, and future navigators be better apprized of the conveniencies we met with, I shall, before I proceed any farther in the history of our own adventures, throw together the most interesting particulars that came to our knowledge relating to the situation, soil, produce, and accommodations of this island of Tinian.

This island lies in the latitude of 15° 8' north, and longitude from Acapulco 114° 50' west. Its length is about twelve miles, and its breadth about half as much, it extending from the S.S.W. to N.N.E. The soil is everywhere dry and healthy, and being withal somewhat sandy, it is thereby the less disposed to a rank and over-luxuriant vegetation; and hence the meadows and the bottoms of the woods are much neater and smoother than is customary in hot climates. The land rose in gentle slopes from the very beach where we watered to the middle of the island, though the general course of its ascent was often interrupted by vallies of an easy descent, many of which wind irregularly through the country. These vallies and the gradual swellings of the ground which their different combinations gave rise to were most beautifully diversified by the mutual encroachments of woods and lawns, which coasted each other and traversed the island in large tracts. The woods consisted of tall and well-spread trees, the greatest part of them celebrated either for their aspect or their fruit: whilst the lawns were usually of a considerable breadth, their turf quite clean and uniform, it being composed of a very fine trefoil, which was intermixed with a variety of flowers. The woods too were in many places open, and free from all bushes and underwood, so that they terminated on the lawns with a well-defined outline, where neither shrubs nor weeds were to be seen; but the neatness of the adjacent turf was frequently extended to a considerable distance under the hollow shade formed by the trees. Hence arose a great number of the most elegant and entertaining prospects, according to the different blendings of these woods and lawns, and their various intersections with each other, as they spread themselves differently through the vallies, and over the slopes and declivities in which the place abounded. Nor were the allurements of Tinian confined to the excellency of its landskips only; since the fortunate animals, which during the greatest part of the year are the sole lords of this happy soil, partake in some measure of the romantic cast of the island, and are no small addition to its wonderful scenery; for the cattle, of which it is not uncommon to see herds of some thousands feeding together in a large meadow, are certainly the most remarkable in the world, as they are all of them milk-white, except their ears, which are generally brown or black. And though there are no inhabitants here, yet the clamour and frequent parading of domestic poultry, which range the woods in great numbers, perpetually excite the idea of the neighbourhood of farms and villages, and greatly contribute to the chearfulness and beauty of the place. The cattle on Tinian we computed were at least ten thousand; we had no difficulty in getting near them, for they were not at all shy of us. Our first method of killing them was shooting them; but at last, when by accidents to be hereafter recited we were obliged to husband our ammunition, our men ran them down with ease. Their flesh was extremely well tasted, and was believed by us to be much more easily digested than any we had ever met with. The fowls too were exceeding good, and were likewise run down with little trouble; for they could scarce fly further than an hundred yards at a flight, and even that fatigued them to such a degree that they could not readily rise again, so that, aided by the openness of the woods, we could at all times furnish ourselves with whatever number we wanted. Besides the cattle and the poultry we found here abundance of wild hogs. These were most excellent food, but as they were a very fierce animal, we were obliged either to shoot them, or to hunt them with large dogs, which we found upon the place at our landing, and which belonged to the detachment which was then upon the island amassing provisions for the garrison of Guam. As these dogs had been purposely trained to the killing of the wild hogs, they followed us very readily and hunted for us; but though they were a large bold breed, the hogs fought with so much fury that they frequently destroyed them, whence we by degrees lost the greatest part of them.

This place was not only extremely grateful to us, from the plenty and excellency of its fresh provisions, but was as much perhaps to be admired on account of its fruits and vegetable productions, which were most fortunately adapted to the cure of the sea scurvy, the disease which had so terribly reduced us. For in the woods there were inconceivable quantities of coco-nuts, with the cabbages growing on the same tree. There were besides, guavoes, limes, sweet and sour oranges, and a kind of fruit peculiar to these islands, called by the Indians Rhymay, but by us the Bread Fruit, for it was constantly eaten by us during our stay upon the island instead of bread, and so universally preferred to it that no ship's bread was expended in that whole interval. It grew upon a tree which is somewhat lofty, and which towards the top divides into large and spreading branches. The leaves of this tree are of a remarkable deep green, are notched about the edges, and are generally from a foot to eighteen inches in length. The fruit itself is found indifferently on all parts of the branches; it is in shape rather elliptical than round; it is covered with a rough rind, and is usually seven or eight inches long; each of them grows singly and not in clusters. This fruit is fittest to be used when it is full grown but still green, in which state, after it is properly prepared by being roasted in the embers, its taste has some distant resemblance to that of an artichoke's bottom, and its texture is not very different, for it is soft and spongy. As it ripens it becomes softer and of a yellow colour, when it contracts a luscious taste and an agreeable smell, not unlike a ripe peach; but then it is esteemed unwholsome and is said to produce fluxes. I shall only add that it is described both by Dampier and in Ray's History of Plants. Besides the fruits already enumerated, there were many other vegetables extremely conducive to the cure of the malady we had long laboured under, such as water melons, dandelion, creeping purslan, mint, scurvy grass, and sorrel; all which, together with the fresh meats of the place, we devoured with great eagerness, prompted thereto by the strong inclination which, in scorbutic disorders, nature never fails of exciting for those powerful specifics.

It will easily be conceived from what hath been already said that our chear upon this island was in some degree luxurious; but I have not yet recited all the varieties of provision which we here indulged in. Indeed we thought it prudent totally to abstain from fish, the few we caught at our first arrival having surfeited those who eat of them; but considering how much we had been inured to that species of food we did not regard this circumstance as a disadvantage, especially as the defect was so amply supplied by the beef, pork, and fowls already mentioned, and by great plenty of wild fowl; for it is to be remembered that near the centre of the island there were two considerable pieces of fresh water, which abounded with duck, teal, and curlew; not to mention the whistling plover, which we found there in prodigious plenty.

It may now perhaps be wondered at that an island so exquisitely furnished with the conveniencies of life, and so well adapted not only to the subsistence but likewise to the enjoyment of mankind, should be entirely destitute of inhabitants, especially as it is in the neighbourhood of other islands, which in some measure depend upon this for their support. To obviate this difficulty, I must observe that it is not fifty years since the island was depopulated. The Indians we had in our custody assured us that formerly the three islands of Tinian, Rota, and Guam were all full of inhabitants; and that Tinian alone contained thirty thousand souls: but a sickness raging amongst these islands which destroyed multitudes of the people, the Spaniards, to recruit their numbers at Guam, which were extremely diminished by the mortality, ordered all the inhabitants of Tinian thither; where, languishing for their former habitations and their customary method of life, the greatest part of them in a few years died of grief. Indeed, independent of that attachment which all mankind have ever shown to the places of their birth and bringing up, it should seem from what has been already said that there were few countries more worthy to be regretted than this of Tinian.

These poor Indians might reasonably have expected, at the great distance from Spain where they were placed, to have escaped the violence and cruelty of that haughty nation, so fatal to a large proportion of the whole human race: but it seems their remote situation could not protect them from sharing in the common destruction of the western world; all the advantage they received from their distance being only to perish an age or two later. It may perhaps be doubted if the number of the inhabitants of Tinian, who were banished to Guam, and who died there pining for their native home, was so considerable as what we have related above; but not to mention the concurrent assertion of our prisoners and the commodiousness of the island and its great fertility, there are still remains to be met with on the place which show it to have been once extremely populous. For there are in all parts of the island many ruins of a very particular kind. These usually consist of two rows of square pyramidal pillars, each pillar being about six feet from the next, and the distance between the rows being about twelve feet; the pillars themselves are about five feet square at the base, and about thirteen feet high; and on the top of each of them there is a semi-globe with the flat surface upwards; the whole of the pillars and semi-globe is solid, being composed of sand and stone cemented together and plaistered over. If the account our prisoners gave us of these structures was true, the island must indeed have been most extraordinary well peopled; since they assured us that they were the foundations of particular buildings set apart for those Indians only who had engaged in some religious vow; monastic institutions being often to be met with in many Pagan nations. However, if these ruins were originally the basis of the common dwelling-houses of the natives, their numbers must have been considerable; for in many parts of the island they are extremely thick planted, and sufficiently evince the great plenty of its former inhabitants. But to return to the present state of the island.

Having briefly recounted the conveniencies of this place, the excellency and quantity of its fruits and provisions, the neatness of its lawns, the stateliness, freshness, and fragrance of its woods, the happy inequality of its surface, and the variety and elegance of the views it afforded, I must now observe that all these advantages were greatly enhanced by the healthiness of its climate, by the almost constant breezes which prevail there, and by the frequent showers which fell there; for these, instead of the heavy continued rains which in some countries render great part of the year so unpleasing, were usually of a very short and almost momentary duration. Hence they were extremely grateful and refreshing, and were perhaps one cause of the salubrity of the air, and of the extraordinary influence it was observed to have upon us in increasing and invigorating our appetites and digestion. This effect was indeed remarkable, since those amongst our officers who were at all other times spare and temperate eaters, who, besides a slight breakfast, used to make but one moderate repast a day, were here, in appearance, transformed into gluttons; for instead of one reasonable flesh meal, they were now scarcely satisfied with three, each of them too so prodigious in quantity as would at another time have produced a fever or a surfeit. And yet our digestion so well corresponded to the keenness of our appetites that we were neither disordered nor even loaded by this uncommon repletion; for after having, according to the custom of the island, made a large beef breakfast, it was not long before we began to consider the approach of dinner as a very desirable, though somewhat tardy, incident.

After giving these large encomiums to this island, in which, however, I conceive I have not done it justice, it is necessary I should speak of those circumstances in which it is defective, whether in point of beauty or utility. And, first, with respect to its water. I must own that, before I had seen this spot, I did not conceive that the absence of running water, of which it is entirely destitute, could have been so well replaced by any other means as it is in this island; since though there are no streams, yet the water of the wells and springs, which are to be met with everywhere near the surface, is extremely good; and in the midst of the island there are two or three considerable pieces of excellent water, the turf of whose banks was as clean, as even, and as regularly disposed as if they had been basons purposely made for the decoration of the place. It must, however, be confessed that with regard to the beauty of the prospects, the want of rills and streams is a very great defect, not to be compensated either by large pieces of standing water or by the neighbourhood of the sea, though that, from the smallness of the island generally, makes a part of every extensive landskip.

As to the residence upon the island, the principal inconvenience attending it is the vast numbers of muscatos, and various other species of flies, together with an insect called a tick; this, though principally attached to the cattle, would yet frequently fasten upon our limbs and bodies, and if not perceived and removed in time would bury its head under the skin and raise a painful inflammation. We found here too centipedes and scorpions, which we supposed were venomous, though none of us ever received any injury from them.

But the most important and formidable exception to this place remains still to be told. This is the inconvenience of the road and the little security there is in some seasons for a ship at anchor. The only proper anchoring place for ships of burthen is at the S.W. end of the island. Here the Centurion anchored in twenty and twenty-two fathom water about a mile and an half distant from the shore opposite to a sandy bay. The bottom of this road is full of sharp-pointed coral rocks, which, during four months of the year, that is from the middle of June to the middle of October, render it a very unsafe anchorage. This is the season of the western monsoons, when near the full and change of the moon, but more particularly at the change, the wind is usually variable all round the compass, and seldom fails to blow with such fury that the stoutest cables are not to be confided in. What adds to the danger at these times is the excessive rapidity of the tide of flood which sets to the S.E. between this island and that of Aguiguan, a small islet near the southern extremity of Tinian. This tide runs at first with a vast head and overfall of water, occasioning such a hollow and overgrown sea as is scarcely to be conceived; so that (as will be more particularly recited in the sequel) we were under the dreadful apprehensions of being pooped by it, though we were in a sixty-gun ship. In the remaining eight months of the year, that is from the middle of October to the middle of June, there is a constant season of settled weather, when, if the cables are but well armed, there is scarcely any danger of their being even rubbed, so that during all that interval it is as secure a road as could be wished for. I shall only add that the anchoring bank is very shelving, and stretches along the S.W. end of the island, and is entirely free from shoals, except a reef of rocks which is visible, and lies about half a mile from the shore, affording a narrow passage into a small sandy bay, which is the only place where boats can possibly land. Having given this account of the island and its produce, it is necessary to return to our own history.

Our first undertaking after our arrival was the removal of our sick on shore, as hath been related. Whilst we were thus employed, four of the Indians on the island, being part of the Spanish Serjeant's detachment, came and surrendered themselves to us, so that with those we took in the proa, we had now eight of them in our custody. One of the four who submitted undertook to show us the most convenient places for killing cattle, and two of our men were ordered to attend him on that service; but one of them unwarily trusting the Indian with his firelock and pistol, the Indian escaped with them into the woods. His countrymen, who remained behind, were apprehensive of suffering for this perfidy of their comrade, and therefore begged leave to send one of their own party into the country, who they engaged should both bring back the arms and persuade the whole detachment from Guam to submit to us. The commodore granted their request, and one of them was dispatched on this errand, who returned next day and brought back the firelock and pistol, but assured us he had found them in a pathway in the wood, and protested that he had not been able to meet with any one of his countrymen. This report had so little the air of truth that we suspected there was some treachery carrying on, and therefore to prevent any future communication amongst them, we immediately ordered all the Indians who were in our power on board the ship, and did not permit them to go any more on shore.

When our sick were well settled on the island, we employed all the hands that could be spared from attending them in arming the cables with a good rounding, several fathom from the anchor, to secure them from being rubbed by the coral rocks which here abounded. This being compleated, our next occupation was our leak, and in order to raise it out of water, we, on the first of September, began to get the guns aft to bring the ship by the stern; and now the carpenters, being able to come at it on the outside, they ripped off what was left of the old sheathing, caulked all the seams on both sides the cut-water, and leaded them over, and then new sheathed the bows to the surface of the water. By this means we conceived the defect was sufficiently secured, but upon our beginning to return the guns to their ports, we had the mortification to perceive that the water rushed into the ship in the old place with as much violence as ever. Hereupon we were necessitated to begin again, and that our second attempt might be more successful, we cleared the fore store-room and sent a hundred and thirty barrels of powder on board the small Spanish bark we had seized here, by which means we raised the ship about three feet out of the water forwards. The carpenters now ripped off the sheathing lower down, new caulked all the seams, and afterwards laid on new sheathing; and then, supposing the leak to be effectually stopped, we began to move the guns forwards; but the upper deck guns were scarcely replaced when, to our amazement, it burst out again. As we durst not cut away the lining within board, lest a but end or a plank might start, and we might go down immediately, we had no other resource left than chincing and caulking within board. Indeed by this means the leak was stopped for some time; but when our guns were all fixed in their ports, and our stores were taken on board, the water again forced its way through a hole in the stem where one of the bolts was driven in. We on this desisted from all farther efforts, being at last well assured that the defect was in the stem itself, and that it was not to be remedied till we should have an opportunity of heaving down.

In the first part of the month of September, several of our sick were tolerably recovered by their residence on shore; and on the 12th of September all those who were so far relieved since their arrival as to be capable of doing duty were sent on board the ship: and then the commodore, who was himself ill of the scurvy, had a tent erected for him on shore, where he went with the view of staying a few days to establish his health, being convinced by the general experience of his people that no other method but living on the land was to be trusted to for the removal of this dreadful malady. The place where his tent was pitched on this occasion was near the well whence we got all our water, and was indeed a most elegant spot.

As the crew on board were now reinforced by the recovered hands returned from the island, we began to send our casks on shore to be fitted up, which till this time could not be done, for the coopers were not well enough to work. We likewise weighed our anchors, that we might examine our cables, which we suspected had by this time received considerable damage. And as the new moon was now approaching, when we apprehended violent gales, the commodore, for our greater security, ordered that part of the cables next to the anchors to be armed with the chains of the fire-grapnels; besides which, they were cackled twenty fathom from the anchors and seven fathom from the service with a good rounding of a 4-½-inch hauser; and being persuaded that the dangers of this road demanded our utmost foresight, we to all these precautions added that of lowering the main and fore-yard close down, that in case of blowing weather the wind might have less power upon the ship to make her ride a strain.

Thus effectually prepared, as we conceived, we waited till the new moon, which was the 18th of September, when riding safe that and the three succeeding days (though the weather proved very squally and uncertain), we flattered ourselves (for I was then on board) that the prudence of our measures had secured us from all accidents; but on the 22d, the wind blew from the eastward with such fury that we soon despaired of riding out the storm. In this conjuncture we should have been extremely glad that the commodore and the rest of our people on shore, which were the greatest part of our hands, had been on board us, since our only hopes of safety seemed to depend on our putting immediately to sea; but all communication with the shore was now absolutely cut off, for there was no possibility that a boat could live, so that we were necessitated to ride it out till our cables parted. Indeed we were not long expecting this dreadful event, for the small bower parted at five in the afternoon, and the ship swung off to the best bower; and as the night came on the violence of the wind still increased, tho' notwithstanding its inexpressible fury, the tide ran with so much rapidity as to prevail over it: for the tide which set to the northward at the beginning of the hurricane, turning suddenly to the southward about six in the evening, forced the ship before it, in despight of the storm which blew upon the beam. The sea now broke most surprizingly all round us, and a large tumbling swell threatened to poop us, by which the long-boat at this time, moored astern, was on a sudden canted so high that it broke the transon of the commodore's gallery, whose cabin was on the quarter-deck, and would doubtless have risen as high as the trafferel had it not been for the stroke, which stove the boat all to pieces; and yet the poor boat-keeper, though extremely bruised, was saved almost by miracle. About eight the tide slackened, but the wind not abating, the best bower cable, by which alone we rode, parted at eleven. Our sheet anchor, which was the only one we had left, was instantly cut from the bow; but before it could reach the bottom, we were driven from twenty-two into thirty-five fathom; and after we had veered away one whole cable and two-thirds of another, we could not find ground with sixty fathom of line. This was a plain indication that the anchor lay near the edge of the bank, and could not hold us long. In this pressing danger, Mr. Saumarez, our first lieutenant, who now commanded on board, ordered several guns to be fired and lights to be shown as a signal to the commodore of our distress; and in a short time after, it being then about one o'clock and the night excessively dark, a strong gust, attended with rain and lightning, drove us off the bank, and forced us out to sea, leaving behind us on the island Mr. Anson with many more of our officers and great part of our crew, amounting in the whole to a hundred and thirteen persons. Thus were we all, both at sea and on shore, reduced to the utmost despair by this catastrophe; those on shore conceiving they had no means left them ever to depart from the island, whilst we on board, being utterly unprepared to struggle with the fury of the seas and winds we were now exposed to, expected each moment to be our last.

CHAPTER III

TRANSACTIONS AT TINIAN AFTER THE DEPARTURE
OF THE "CENTURION"

The storm which drove the Centurion to sea blew with too much turbulence to permit either the commodore or any of the people on shore to hear the guns which she fired as signals of distress, and the frequent glare of the lightning had prevented the explosions from being observed: so that when at daybreak it was perceived from the shore that the ship was missing, there was the utmost consternation amongst them: for much the greatest part of them immediately concluded that she was lost, and intreated the commodore that the boat might be sent round the island to look after the wreck; and those who believed her safe had scarcely any expectation that she would ever be able to make the island again, since the wind continued to blow strong at east, and they well knew how poorly she was manned and provided for struggling with so tempestuous a gale. In either of these views their situation was indeed most deplorable: for if the Centurion was lost, or should be incapable of returning, there appeared no possibility of their ever getting off the island, as they were at least six hundred leagues from Macao, which was their nearest port, and they were masters of no other vessel than the small Spanish bark of about fifteen tun seized at their first arrival, which would not even hold a fourth part of their number. And the chance of their being taken off the island by the casual arrival of any other ship was altogether desperate, as perhaps no European ship had ever anchored here before, and it were madness to expect that like incidents should send another here in an hundred ages to come: so that their desponding thoughts could only suggest to them the melancholy prospect of spending the remainder of their days on this island, and bidding adieu for ever to their country, their friends, their families, and all their domestic endearments.

Nor was this the worst they had to fear: for they had reason to apprehend that the Governor of Guam, when he should be informed of their circumstances, might send a force sufficient to overpower them, and to remove them to that island; and then the most favourable treatment they could expect would be to be detained prisoners during life; since from the known policy and cruelty of the Spaniards in their distant settlements, it was rather to be supposed that the governor, if he once had them in his power, would make their want of commissions (all of them being on board the Centurion) a pretext for treating them as pirates, and for depriving them of their lives with infamy.

In the midst of these gloomy reflections, Mr. Anson, though he always kept up his usual composure and steadiness, had doubtless his share of disquietude. However, having soon projected a scheme for extricating himself and his men from their present anxious situation, he first communicated it to some of the most intelligent persons about him; and having satisfied himself that it was practicable, he then endeavoured to animate his people to a speedy and vigorous prosecution of it. With this view he represented to them how little foundation there was for their apprehensions of the Centurion's being lost: that he should have presumed they had been all of them better acquainted with sea affairs than to give way to the impression of so chimerical a fright: that he doubted not but if they would seriously consider what such a ship was capable of enduring, they would confess there was not the least probability of her having perished: that he was not without hopes that she might return in a few days; but if she did not, the worst that could be imagined was, that she was driven so far to the leeward of the island that she could not regain it, and that she would consequently be obliged to bear away for Macao on the coast of China: that as it was necessary to be prepared against all events, he had, in this case, considered of a method of carrying them off the island, and of joining their old ship the Centurion again at Macao: that this method was to hale the Spanish bark on shore, to saw her asunder, and to lengthen her twelve feet, which would enlarge her to near forty tun burthen, and would enable her to carry them all to China: that he had consulted the carpenters, and they had agreed that this proposal was very feasible, and that nothing was wanting to execute it but the united resolution and industry of the whole body: and having added that for his own part he would share the fatigue and labour with them, and would expect no more from any man than what he, the commodore himself, was ready to submit to, he concluded with representing to them the importance of saving time, urging that, in order to be the better secured at all events, it was expedient to set about the work immediately, and to take it for granted that the Centurion would not be able to put back (which was indeed the commodore's secret opinion), since if she did return, they should only throw away a few days' application; but if she did not, their situation and the season of the year required their utmost dispatch.

These remonstrances, though not without effect, did not at first operate so powerfully as Mr. Anson could have wished. He indeed raised their spirits by showing them the possibility of their getting away, of which they had before despaired; but then from their confidence in this resource they grew less apprehensive of their situation, gave a greater scope to their hopes, and flattered themselves that the Centurion would be able to regain the island, and prevent the execution of the commodore's scheme, which they could easily foresee would be a work of considerable labour. Hence it was some days before they were all of them heartily engaged in the project; but at last being convinced of the impossibility of the ship's return, they betook themselves zealously to the different tasks allotted them, and were as industrious and as eager as their commander could desire, punctually assembling by daybreak at the rendezvous, whence they were distributed to their different employments, which they followed with unusual vigour till night came on.

And here I must interrupt the course of this transaction to relate an incident which for a short time gave Mr. Anson more concern than all the preceding disasters. A few days after the ship was driven off, some of the people on shore cried out, "A sail!" This spread a general joy, every one supposing that it was the ship returning; but presently, a second sail was descried, which quite destroyed their first conjecture, and made it difficult to guess what they were. The commodore eagerly turned his glass towards them, and saw they were two boats, on which it immediately occurred to him that the Centurion was gone to the bottom, and that these were her two boats coming back with the remains of her people; and this sudden and unexpected suggestion wrought on him so powerfully that to conceal his emotion he was obliged (without speaking to any one) instantly to retire to his tent, where he passed some bitter moments, in the firm belief that the ship was lost, and that now all his views of farther distressing the enemy, and of still signalizing his expedition by some important exploit, were at an end.

However, he was soon relieved from these disturbing thoughts by discovering that the two boats in the offing were Indian proas; and perceiving that they made towards the shore, he directed every appearance that could give them any suspicion to be removed, concealing his people in the adjacent thickets, ready to secure the Indians when they should land: but after the proas had stood in within a quarter of a mile of the beach, they suddenly stopt short, and remaining there motionless for near two hours, they then got under sail again, and steered to the southward. Let us now return to the projected enlargement of the bark.

If we examine how they were prepared for going through with this undertaking, on which their safety depended, we shall find that, independent of other matters which were of as much consequence, the lengthning of the bark alone was attended with great difficulty. Indeed, in a proper place, where all the necessary materials and tools were to be had, the embarrassment would have been much less; but some of these tools were to be made, and many of the materials were wanting, and it required no small degree of invention to supply all these deficiencies. And when the hull of the bark should be compleated, this was but one article, and there were others of equal weight which were to be well considered: these were the rigging it, the victualling it, and lastly the navigating it, for the space of six or seven hundred leagues, through unknown seas where no one of the company had ever passed before. And in these particulars such obstacles occurred, that without the intervention of very extraordinary and unexpected accidents, the possibility of the whole enterprize would have fallen to the ground, and their utmost industry and efforts must have been fruitless. Of all these circumstances I shall make a short recital.

It fortunately happened that the carpenters, both of the Gloucester and of the Tryal, with their chests of tools, were on shore when the ship drove out to sea; the smith too was on shore, and had with him his forge and several of his tools, but unhappily his bellows had not been brought from on board, so that he was incapable of working, and without his assistance they could not hope to proceed with their design. Their first attention, therefore, was to make him a pair of bellows, but in this they were for some time puzzled by their want of leather; however, as they had hides in sufficient plenty, and they had found a hogshead of lime, which the Indians or Spaniards had prepared for their own use, they tanned a few hides with this lime; and though we may suppose the workmanship to be but indifferent, yet the leather they thus procured answered the intention tolerably well, and the bellows, to which a gun-barrel served for a pipe, had no other inconvenience than that of being somewhat strong scented from the imperfection of the tanner's work.

Whilst the smith was preparing the necessary iron-work, others were employed in cutting down trees and sawing them into planks; and this being the most laborious task, the commodore wrought at it himself for the encouragement of his people. But there being neither blocks nor cordage sufficient for tackles to haul the bark on shore, this occasioned a new difficulty; however, it was at length resolved to get her up on rollers, since for these the body of the coconut tree was extremely well fitted, as its smoothness and circular turn prevented much labour, and suited it to the purpose with very little workmanship. A number of these trees were therefore felled, and the ends of them properly opened for the insertion of hand-spikes; and in the meantime a dry dock was dug to receive the bark, and ways were laid from thence quite into the sea to facilitate the bringing her up. Neither were these the whole of their occupations, since, besides those who were thus busied in preparing measures towards the future enlargement of the bark, a party was constantly ordered to kill and provide provisions for the rest. And though in these various employments, some of which demanded considerable dexterity, it might have been expected there would have been great confusion and delay, yet good order being once established and all hands engaged, their preparations advanced apace. Indeed, the common men, I presume, were not the less tractable for their want of spirituous liquors: for there being neither wine nor brandy on shore, the juice of the coconut was their constant drink; and this, though extremely pleasant, was not at all intoxicating, but kept them very temperate and orderly.

The main work now proceeding successfully, the officers began to consider of all the articles which would be necessary to the fitting out the bark for the sea. On this consultation it was found that the tents on shore and the spare cordage accidentally left there by the Centurion, together with the sails and rigging already belonging to the bark, would serve to rig her indifferently well when she was lengthened. And as they had tallow in plenty, they proposed to pay her bottom with a mixture of tallow and lime, which it was known was not ill adapted to that purpose: so that with respect to her equipment she would not have been very defective. There was, however, one exception, which would have proved extremely inconvenient, and that was her size: for as they could not make her quite forty tun burthen, she would have been incapable of containing half the crew below the deck, and she would have been so top-heavy that if they were all at the same time ordered upon deck, there would be no small hazard of her oversetting; but this was a difficulty not to be removed, as they could not augment her beyond the size already proposed. After the manner of rigging and fitting up the bark was considered and regulated, the next essential point to be thought on was how to procure a sufficient stock of provisions for their voyage; and here they were greatly at a loss what expedient to have recourse to, as they had neither grain nor bread of any kind on shore, their bread-fruit, which would not keep at sea, having all along supplied its place; and though they had live cattle enough, yet they had no salt to cure beef for a sea-store, nor would meat take salt in that climate. Indeed, they had preserved a small quantity of jerked beef, which they found upon the place at their landing; but this was greatly disproportioned to the run of near six hundred leagues which they were to engage in, and to the number of hands they should have on board. It was at last, however, resolved to put on board as many coconuts as they possibly could, to prolong to the utmost their jerked beef by a very sparing distribution of it, and to endeavour to supply their want of bread by rice; to furnish themselves with which, it was proposed, when the bark was fitted up, to make an expedition to the island of Rota, where they were told that the Spaniards had large plantations of rice under the care of the Indian inhabitants. But as this last measure was to be executed by force, it became necessary to examine what ammunition had been left on shore, and to preserve it carefully; and on this enquiry, they had the mortification to find that their firelocks would be of little service to them, since all the powder that could be collected, by the strictest search, did not amount to more than ninety charges, which was considerably short of one apiece to each of the company, and was indeed a very slender stock of ammunition for such as were to eat no grain or bread during a whole month, except what they were to procure by force of arms.

But the most alarming circumstance, and which, without the providential interposition of very improbable events, would have rendered all their schemes abortive, remains yet to be related. The general idea of the fabric and equipment of the vessel was settled in a few days; and this being done, it was not difficult to frame some estimation of the time necessary to compleat her. After this, it was natural to expect that the officers would consider the course they were to steer, and the land they were to make. These reflections led them to the disheartning discovery that there was neither compass nor quadrant on the island. Indeed the commodore had brought a pocket-compass on shore for his own use, but Lieutenant Brett had borrowed it to determine the position of the neighbouring islands, and he had been driven to sea in the Centurion without returning it. And as to a quadrant, that could not be expected to be found on shore, since as it was of no use at land, there could be no reason for bringing it from on board the ship. There were now eight days elapsed since the departure of the Centurion, and yet they were not in any degree relieved from this terrible perplexity. At last, in rumaging a chest belonging to the Spanish bark, they discovered a small compass, which, though little better than the toys usually made for the amusement of schoolboys, was to them an invaluable treasure. And a few days after, by a similar piece of good fortune, they met with a quadrant on the sea-shore, which had been thrown overboard amongst other lumber belonging to the dead. The quadrant was eagerly seized, but on examination it unluckily wanted vanes, and therefore in this present state was altogether useless; however, fortune still continuing in a favourable mood, it was not long before a person, through curiosity pulling out the drawer of an old table which had been driven on shore, found therein some vanes which fitted the quadrant very well; and it being thus compleated, it was examined by the known latitude of the place, and upon trial answered to a sufficient degree of exactness.

When now all these obstacles were in some degree removed (which were always as much as possible concealed from the vulgar, that they might not grow remiss with the apprehension of labouring to no purpose), the business proceeded very successfully and vigorously. The necessary iron-work was in great forwardness, and the timbers and planks (which, tho' not the most exquisite performances of the sawyer's art, were yet sufficient for the purpose) were all prepared; so that on the 6th of October, being the 14th day from the departure of the ship, they hauled the bark on shore, and on the two succeeding days she was sawn asunder, though with the caution not to cut her planks: and her two parts being separated the proper distance from each other, and the materials being all ready beforehand, they, the next day, being the 9th of October, went on with no small dispatch in their proposed enlargement of her; whence by this time they had all their future operations so fairly in view, and were so much masters of them, that they were able to determine when the whole would be finished, and had accordingly fixed the 5th of November for the day of their putting to sea. But their projects and labours were now drawing to a speedier and happier conclusion; for on the 11th of October, in the afternoon, one of the Gloucester's men being upon a hill in the middle of the island, perceived the Centurion at a distance, and running down with his utmost speed towards the landing-place, he, in the way, saw some of his comrades, to whom he hallooed out with great extasy, "The ship, the ship!" This being heard by Mr. Gordon, a lieutenant of marines, who was convinced by the fellow's transport that his report was true, Mr. Gordon directly hastened towards the place where the commodore and his people were at work, and being fresh and in breath easily outstripped the Gloucester's man, and got before him to the commodore, who, on hearing this pleasing and unexpected news, threw down his axe, with which he was then at work, and by his joy broke through, for the first time, the equable and unvaried character which he had hitherto preserved: whilst the others who were present instantly ran down to the seaside in a kind of frenzy, eager to feast themselves with a sight they had so ardently longed after, and of which they had now for a considerable time despaired. By five in the evening the Centurion was visible in the offing to them all; and, a boat being sent off with eighteen men to reinforce her, and with fresh meat and fruits for the refreshment of her crew, she, the next afternoon, happily cast anchor in the road, where the commodore immediately came on board her, and was received by us with the sincerest and heartiest acclamations: for, by the following short recital of the fears, the dangers, and fatigues we in the ship underwent during our nineteen days' absence from Tinian, it may be easily conceived that a harbour, refreshments, repose, and the joining of our commander and shipmates were not less pleasing to us than our return was to them.

CHAPTER IV

PROCEEDINGS ON BOARD THE "CENTURION" WHEN DRIVEN
OUT TO SEA

The Centurion being now once more safely arrived at Tinian, to the mutual respite of the labours of our divided crew, it is high time that the reader, after the relation already given of the projects and employment of those left on shore, should be apprized of the fatigues and distresses to which we, whom the Centurion carried off to sea, were exposed during the long interval of nineteen days that we were absent from the island.

It has been already mentioned that it was the 22d of September, about one o'clock, in an extreme dark night, when by the united violence of a prodigious storm and an exceeding rapid tide, we were driven from our anchors and forced to sea. Our condition then was truly deplorable; we were in a leaky ship with three cables in our hawses, to one of which hung our only remaining anchor: we had not a gun on board lashed, nor a port barred in; our shrouds were loose, and our top-masts unrigged, and we had struck our fore and main-yards close down before the hurricane came on, so that there were no sails we could set, except our mizen. In this dreadful extremity we could muster no more strength on board to navigate the ship than an hundred and eight hands, several negroes and Indians included: this was scarcely the fourth part of our complement, and of these the greater number were either boys, or such as, being but lately recovered from the scurvy, had not yet arrived at half their former vigour. No sooner were we at sea, but by the violence of the storm and the working of the ship we made a great quantity of water through our hawse-holes, ports, and scuppers, which, added to the constant effect of our leak, rendered our pumps alone a sufficient employment for us all. But though we knew that this leakage, by being a short time neglected, would inevitably end in our destruction, yet we had other dangers then hanging over us which occasioned this to be regarded as a secondary consideration only. For we all imagined that we were driving directly on the neighbouring island of Aguiguan, which was about two leagues distant; and as we had lowered our main and fore-yards close down, we had no sails we could set but the mizen, which was altogether insufficient to carry us clear of this imminent peril. Urged therefore by this pressing emergency, we immediately applied ourselves to work, endeavouring with the utmost of our efforts to heave up the main and fore-yards, in hopes that if we could but be enabled to make use of our lower canvass, we might possibly weather the island, and thereby save ourselves from this impending shipwreck. But after full three hours' ineffectual labour, the jeers broke, and the men being quite jaded, we were obliged, by mere debility, to desist, and quietly to expect our fate, which we then conceived to be unavoidable. For we soon esteemed ourselves to be driven just upon the shore, and the night was so extremely dark that we expected to discover the island no otherwise than by striking upon it; so that the belief of our destruction, and the uncertainty of the point of time when it should take place, occasioned us to pass several hours under the most serious apprehensions that each succeeding moment would send us to the bottom. Nor did these continued terrors of instantly striking and sinking end but with the daybreak, when we with great transport perceived that the island we had thus dreaded was at a considerable distance, and that a strong northern current had been the cause of our preservation.

The turbulent weather which forced us from Tinian did not abate till three days after, and then we swayed up the fore-yard, and began to heave up the main-yard, but the jeers broke again and killed one of our people, and prevented us at that time from proceeding. The next day, being the 26th of September, was a day of most severe fatigue to us all, for it must be remembered that in these exigences no rank or office exempted any person from the manual application and bodily labour of a common sailor. The business of this day was no less than an endeavour to heave up the sheet-anchor, which we had hitherto dragged at our bows with two cables an end. This was a work of great importance to our future preservation: for not to mention the impediment it would be to our navigation, and hazard to our ship, if we attempted to make sail with the anchor in its present situation, we had this most interesting consideration to animate us, that it was the only anchor we had left, and without securing it we should be under the utmost difficulties and hazards whenever we fell in with the land again; and therefore, being all of us fully apprized of the consequence of this enterprize, we laboured at it with the severest application for twelve hours, when we had indeed made a considerable progress, having brought the anchor in sight; but it growing dark, and we being excessively fatigued, we were obliged to desist, and to leave our work unfinished till the next morning, and then, refreshed by the benefit of a night's rest, we compleated it, and hung the anchor at our bow.

It was the 27th of September, that is, five days after our departure, before we had thus secured our anchor. However, we the same day got up our main-yard, so that having now conquered, in some degree, the distress and disorder which we were necessarily involved in at our first driving out to sea, and being enabled to make use of our canvass, we set our courses, and for the first time stood to the eastward in hopes of regaining the island of Tinian, and joining our commodore in a few days, since, by our accounts, we were only forty-seven leagues distant to the south-west. Hence, on the first day of October, having then run the distance necessary for making the island according to our reckoning, we were in full expectation of seeing it: but here we were unhappily disappointed, and were thereby convinced that a current had driven us considerably to the westward. This discovery threw us into a new perplexity; for as we could not judge how much we might hereby have deviated, and consequently how long we might still expect to be at sea, we had great apprehensions that our stock of water would prove deficient, since we were doubtful about the quantity we had on board, finding many of our casks so decayed as to be half leaked out. However, we were delivered from our uncertainty the next day, having then a sight of the island of Guam, and hence we computed that the currents had driven us forty-four leagues to the westward of our accounts. Being now satisfied of our situation by this sight of land, we kept plying to the eastward, though with excessive labour; for the wind continuing fixed in the eastern board, we were obliged to tack often, and our crew was so weak that, without the assistance of every man on board, it was not in our power to put the ship about. This severe employment lasted till the 11th of October, being the nineteenth day from our departure, when arriving in the offing of Tinian, we were reinforced from the shore, as hath been already related; and on the evening of the same day we, to our inexpressible joy, came to an anchor in the road, thereby procuring to our shipmates on shore, as well as to ourselves, a cessation from the fatigues and apprehensions which this disastrous incident had given rise to.

CHAPTER V

EMPLOYMENT AT TINIAN TILL THE FINAL DEPARTURE OF THE "CENTURION" FROM THENCE; WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE LADRONES

When the commodore came on board the Centurion after her return to Tinian, he resolved to stay no longer at the island than was absolutely necessary to compleat our stock of water, a work which we immediately set ourselves about. But the loss of our long-boat, which was staved against our poop before we were driven out to sea, put us to great inconveniences in getting our water on board, for we were obliged to raft off all our cask, and the tide ran so strong, that besides the frequent delays and difficulties it occasioned, we more than once lost the whole raft. Nor was this our only misfortune; for on the 14th of October, being but the third day after our arrival, a sudden gust of wind brought home our anchor, forced us off the bank, and drove the ship out to sea a second time. The commodore, it is true, and the principal officers were now on board; but we had near seventy men on shore, who had been employed in filling our water and procuring provisions. These had with them our two cutters: but as they were too many for the cutters to bring off at once, we sent the eighteen-oared barge to assist them, and at the same time made a signal for all that could to embark. The two cutters soon came off to us full of men; but forty of the company, who were busied in killing cattle in the woods, and in bringing them down to the landing-place, remained behind; and though the eighteen-oared barge was left for their conveyance, yet as the ship soon drove to a considerable distance, it was not in their power to join us. However, as the weather was favourable, and our crew was now stronger than when we were first driven out, we in about five days' time returned again to an anchor at Tinian, and relieved those we had left behind us from their second fears of being deserted by their ship.

On our arrival, we found that the Spanish bark, the old object of their hopes, had undergone a new metamorphosis: for those on shore despairing of our return, and conceiving that the lengthening the bark, as formerly proposed, was both a toilsome and unnecessary measure, considering the small number they consisted of, they had resolved to join her again and to restore her to her first state; and in this scheme they had made some progress, for they had brought the two parts together, and would have soon compleated her, had not our coming back put a period to their labours and disquietudes.

These people we had left behind informed us that just before we were seen in the offing two proas had stood in very near the shore, and had continued there for some time; but on the appearance of our ship they crowded away, and were presently out of sight. And on this occasion I must mention an incident, which though it happened during the first absence of the ship, was then omitted, to avoid interrupting the course of the narration.

It hath been already observed that a part of the detachment sent to this island under the command of the Spanish Serjeant lay concealed in the woods. Indeed we were the less solicitous to find them out, as our prisoners all assured us that it was impossible for them to get off, and consequently that it was impossible for them to send any intelligence about us to Guam. But when the Centurion drove out to sea and left the commodore on shore, he one day, attended by some of his officers, endeavoured to make the tour of the island. In this expedition, being on a rising ground, they observed in the valley beneath them the appearance of a small thicket, which by attending to more nicely they found had a progressive motion. This at first surprized them; but they soon perceived that it was no more than several large coco bushes, which were dragged along the ground by persons concealed beneath them. They immediately concluded that these were some of the Serjeant's party, which was indeed true; and therefore the commodore and his people made after them, in hopes of tracing out their retreat. The Indians, remarking that they were discovered, hurried away with precipitation; but Mr. Anson was so near them that he did not lose sight of them till they arrived at their cell, which he and his officers entering, found to be abandoned, there being a passage from it which had been contrived for the conveniency of flight, and which led down a precipice. They here met with an old firelock or two, but no other arms. However, there was a great quantity of provisions, particularly salted sparibs of pork, which were excellent; and from what our people saw, they concluded that the extraordinary appetite which they had acquired at this island was not confined to themselves alone; for it being about noon, the Indians laid out a very plentiful repast, considering their numbers, and had their bread-fruit and coconuts prepared ready for eating, in a manner too which plainly evinced that with them a good meal was neither an uncommon nor an unheeded article. The commodore having in vain searched after the path by which the Indians had escaped, he and his officers contented themselves with sitting down to the dinner which was thus luckily fitted to their present hunger; after which they returned back to their old habitation, displeased at missing the Indians, as they hoped to have engaged them in our service, if they could have had any conference with them. I must add, that notwithstanding what our prisoners had asserted, we were afterwards assured that these Indians were carried off to Guam long before we left the place. But to return to our history.

On our coming to an anchor again, after our second driving off to sea, we laboured indefatigably at getting in our water; and having, by the 20th of October, compleated it to fifty tun, which we supposed would be sufficient during our passage to Macao, we on the next day sent one of each mess on shore to gather as large a quantity of oranges, lemons, coconuts, and other fruits of the island as they possibly could, for the use of themselves and their messmates when at sea. And these purveyors returning on the evening of the same day, we then set fire to the bark and proa, hoisted in our boats and got under sail, steering away towards the south end of the island of Formosa, and taking our leaves, for the third and last time, of the island of Tinian: an island which, whether we consider the excellence of its productions, the beauty of its appearance, the elegance of its woods and lawns, the healthiness of its air, or the adventures it gave rise to, may in all these views be justly stiled romantic.

And now, postponing for a short time our run to Formosa, and thence to Canton, I shall interrupt the narration with a description of that range of islands usually called the Ladrones, or Marian Islands, of which this of Tinian is one.

These islands were discovered by Magellan in the year 1521; and from the account given of the two he first fell in with, it should seem that they were those of Saypan and Tinian, for they are described as very beautiful islands, and as lying between 15 and 16 degrees of north latitude. These characteristics are particularly applicable to the two above-mentioned places; for the pleasing appearance of Tinian hath occasioned the Spaniards to give it the additional name of Buenavista; and Saypan, which is in the latitude of 15° 22' north, affords no contemptible prospect when seen at sea, as is sufficiently evident from a view of its north-west side.

There are usually reckoned twelve of these islands; but it will appear that if the small islets and rocks are counted, that their whole number will amount to above twenty. They were formerly most of them well inhabited; and even not sixty years ago, the three principal islands, Guam, Rota, and Tinian together, are asserted to have contained above fifty thousand people: but since that time Tinian had been entirely depopulated; and no more than two or three hundred Indians have been left at Rota to cultivate rice for the island of Guam; so that now Guam alone can properly be said to be inhabited. This island of Guam is the only settlement of the Spaniards; here they keep a governor and garrison, and here the Manila ship generally touches for refreshment in her passage from Acapulco to the Philippines. It is esteemed to be about thirty leagues in circumference, and contains, by the Spanish accounts, near four thousand inhabitants, of which a thousand are supposed to live in the city of San Ignatio de Agana, where the governor generally resides, and where the houses are represented as considerable, being built with stone and timber, and covered with tiles, a very uncommon fabric for these warm climates and savage countries. Besides this city, there are upon the island thirteen or fourteen villages. As Guam is a post of some consequence, on account of the refreshment it yields to the Manila ship, there are two castles on the seashore; one is the castle of St. Angelo, which lies near the road where the Manila ship usually anchors, and is but an insignificant fortress, mounting only five guns, eight-pounders; the other is the castle of St. Lewis, which is N.E. from St. Angelo, and four leagues distant, and is intended to protect a road where a small vessel anchors which arrives here every other year from Manila. This fort mounts the same number of guns as the former: and besides these forts, there is a battery of five pieces of cannon on an eminence near the seashore. The Spanish troops employed at this island consist of three companies of foot, betwixt forty and fifty men each, and this is the principal strength the governor has to depend on; for he cannot rely on any assistance from the Indian inhabitants, being generally upon ill terms with them, and so apprehensive of them that he has debarred them the use both of firearms and lances.

The rest of these islands, though not inhabited, do yet abound with many kinds of refreshment and provision; but there is no good harbour or road amongst them all. Of that of Tinian we have treated largely already; nor is the road of Guam much better, since it is not uncommon for the Manila ship, though she proposes to stay there but twenty-four hours, to be forced to sea, and to leave her boat behind her. This is an inconvenience so sensibly felt by the commerce at Manila, that it is always recommended to the Governor of Guam to use his best endeavours for the discovery of some secure port in the neighbouring ocean. How industrious he may be to comply with his instructions I know not; but this is certain, that notwithstanding the many islands already found out between the coast of Mexico and the Philippines, there is not any one safe port to be met with in that whole track, though in other parts of the world it is not uncommon for very small islands to furnish most excellent harbours.

From what has been said, it appears that the Spaniards on the island of Guam are extremely few compared to the Indian inhabitants; and formerly the disproportion was still greater, as may be easily conceived from the account given in another chapter of the numbers heretofore on Tinian alone. These Indians are a bold, strong, well-limbed people, and, as it should seem from some of their practices, are no ways defective in understanding, for their flying proas in particular, which during ages past have been the only vessels employed by them, are so singular and extraordinary an invention that it would do honour to any nation, however dextrous and acute. Since, if we consider the aptitude of this proa to the navigation of these islands, which lying all of them nearly under the same meridian, and within the limits of the trade-wind, require the vessels made use of in passing from one to the other to be peculiarly fitted for sailing with the wind upon the beam; or if we examine the uncommon simplicity and ingenuity of its fabric and contrivance, or the extraordinary velocity with which it moves, we shall, in each of these articles, find it worthy of our admiration, and deserving a place amongst the mechanical productions of the most civilized nations where arts and sciences have most eminently flourished. As former navigators, though they have mentioned these vessels, have yet treated of them imperfectly, and, as I conceive that besides their curiosity they may furnish both the shipwright and seaman with no contemptible observations, I shall here insert a very exact description of the build, rigging, and working of these vessels, which I am the better enabled to perform, as one of them fell into our hands on our first arrival at Tinian, and Mr. Brett took it to pieces that he might delineate its fabric and dimensions with greater accuracy: so that the following account may be relied on.

The name of flying proa, appropriated to these vessels, is owing to the swiftness with which they sail. Of this the Spaniards assert such stories as must appear altogether incredible to one who has never seen these vessels move; nor are they the only people who recount these extraordinary tales of their celerity, for those who shall have the curiosity to enquire at Portsmouth dock about an experiment tried there some years since with a very imperfect one built at that place, will meet with accounts not less wonderful than any the Spaniards have related. However, from some rude estimations made by us of the velocity with which they crossed the horizon at a distance while we lay at Tinian, I cannot help believing that with a brisk trade-wind they will run near twenty miles an hour; which, though greatly short of what the Spaniards report of them, is yet a prodigious degree of swiftness. But let us give a distinct idea of its figure.

The construction of this proa is a direct contradiction to the practice of all the rest of mankind: for as it is customary to make the head of the vessel different from the stern, but the two sides alike, the proa, on the contrary, has her head and stern exactly alike, but her two sides very different; the side intended to be always the lee side being flat, whilst the windward side is built rounding, in the manner of other vessels: and to prevent her oversetting, which from her small breadth and the strait run of her leeward side, would, without this precaution, infallibly happen, there is a frame laid out from her to windward, to the end of which is fastened a log fashioned into the shape of a small boat, and made hollow. The weight of the frame is intended to balance the proa, and the small boat is by its buoyancy (as it is always in the water) to prevent her oversetting to windward; and this frame is usually called an outrigger. The body of the proa (at least of that we took) is formed of two pieces joined endways and sewed together with bark, for there is no iron used in her construction. She is about two inches thick at the bottom, which at the gunwale is reduced to less than one. The proa generally carries six or seven Indians, two of which are placed in the head and stern, who steer the vessel alternately with a paddle according to the tack she goes on, he in the stern being the steersman; the other Indians are employed either in baling out the water which she accidentally ships, or in setting and trimming the sail. From the description of these vessels it is sufficiently obvious how dexterously they are fitted for ranging this collection of islands called the Ladrones: since as these islands bear nearly N. and S. of each other, and are all within the limits of the trade-wind, the proas, by sailing most excellently on a wind, and with either end foremost, can run from one of these islands to the other and back again only by shifting the sail, without ever putting about; and by the flatness of their lee side, and their small breadth, they are capable of lying much nearer the wind than any other vessel hitherto known, and thereby have an advantage which no vessels that go large can ever pretend to.

The advantage I mean is that of running with a velocity nearly as great, and perhaps sometimes greater, than what the wind blows with. This, however paradoxical it may appear, is evident enough in similar instances on shore, since it is well known that the sails of a windmill often move faster than the wind; and one great superiority of common windmills over all others that ever were, or ever will be, contrived to move with an horizontal motion, is analogous to the case we have mentioned of a vessel upon a wind and before the wind: for the sails of an horizontal windmill, the faster they move the more they detract from the impulse of the wind upon them; whereas the common windmills, by moving perpendicular to the torrent of air, are nearly as forcibly acted on by the wind when they are in motion as when they are at rest.

Thus much may suffice as to the description and nature of these singular embarkations. I must add that vessels bearing some obscure resemblance to these are to be met with in various parts of the East Indies, but none of them, that I can learn, to be compared with those of the Ladrones, either for their construction or celerity; which should induce one to believe that this was originally the invention of some genius of these islands, and was afterwards imperfectly copied by the neighbouring nations: for though the Ladrones have no immediate intercourse with any other people, yet there lie to the S. and S.W. of them a great number of islands, which are imagined to extend to the coast of New Guinea. These islands are so near the Ladrones that canoes from them have sometimes by distress been driven to Guam, and the Spaniards did once dispatch a bark for their discovery, which left two Jesuits amongst them, who were afterwards murthered. Whence it may be presumed that the inhabitants of the Ladrones, with their proas, may by storms or casualties have been driven amongst those islands. Indeed, I should conceive that the same range of islands stretches to the S.E. as well as the S.W., and to a prodigious distance, for Schouten, who traversed the south part of the Pacific Ocean in the year 1615, met with a large double canoe full of people above a thousand leagues from the Ladrones, towards the S.E. If that double canoe was any distant imitation of the flying proa, which is no very improbable conjecture, it must then be supposed that a range of islands, near enough to each other to be capable of an accidental communication, is continued thither from the Ladrones. This seems to be farther evinced from hence, that all those who have crossed from America to the East Indies in a southern latitude have never failed of discovering several very small islands scattered over that immense ocean.

And as there may be hence some reason to conclude that there is a chain of islands spreading themselves southward towards the unknown boundaries of the Pacific Ocean of which the Ladrones are only a part, so it appears that the same chain is extended from the northward of the Ladrones to Japan: whence in this light the Ladrones will be only one small portion of a range of islands reaching from Japan perhaps to the unknown southern continent. After this short account of these places, I shall now return to the prosecution of our voyage.

CHAPTER VI

FROM TINIAN TO MACAO

On the 21st of October, in the evening, we took our leave of the Island of Tinian, steering the proper course for Macao in China. The eastern monsoon was now, we reckoned, fairly settled; and we had a constant gale blowing right astern, so that we generally ran from forty to fifty leagues a day. But we had a large hollow sea pursuing us, which occasioned the ship to labour much; whence our leak was augmented, and we received great damage in our rigging, which by this time was grown very rotten. However, our people were now happily in full health, so that there were no complaints of fatigue, but all went through their attendance on the pumps, and every other duty of the ship, with ease and chearfulness.

Before we left Tinian we swept for our best and small bower, and employed the Indians to dive in search of them; but all to no purpose. Hence, except our prize anchors, which were stowed in the hold, and were too light to be depended on, we had only our sheet-anchor left: and that being obviously much too heavy for a coasting-anchor, we were under great concern how we should manage on the coast of China, where we were entire strangers, and where we should doubtless be frequently under the necessity of coming to an anchor. But we at length removed the difficulty by fixing two of our largest prize anchors into one stock and placing between their shanks two guns, four pounders. This we intended to serve as a best bower: and a third prize anchor being in like manner joined to our stream-anchor, with guns between them, made us a small bower; so that, besides our sheet-anchor, we had again two others at our bows, one of which weighed 3900, and the other 2900 pounds.

The 3d of November, about three in the afternoon, we saw an island, which at first we imagined to be Botel Tobago Xima, but on our nearer approach we found it to be much smaller than that is usually represented; and about an hour after we saw another island, five or six miles farther to the westward. As no chart or journal we had seen took notice of any island to the eastward of Formosa but Botel Tobago Xima, and as we had no observation of our latitude at noon, we were in some perplexity, apprehending that an extraordinary current had driven us into the neighbourhood of the Bashee Islands. We therefore, when night came on, brought to, and continued in that posture till the next morning, which proving dark and cloudy, for some time prolonged our uncertainty; but it clearing up about nine o'clock, we again discerned the two islands abovementioned; and having now the day before us, we pressed forwards to the westward, and by eleven got a sight of the southern part of the island of Formosa. This satisfied us that the second island we saw was Botel Tobago Xima, and the first a small islet or rock, lying five or six miles due east of it, which, not being mentioned in any of our books or charts, had been the occasion of all our doubts.

When we had made the Island of Formosa we steered W. by S. in order to double its extremity, and kept a good look-out for the rocks of Vele Rete, which we did not discover till two in the afternoon. They then bore from us W.N.W. three miles distant, the south end of Formosa at the same time bearing N. by W.½W. about five leagues distant. To give these rocks a good birth we immediately haled up S. by W. and so left them between us and the land. Indeed we had reason to be careful of them; for though they appeared as high out of the water as a ship's hull, yet they are environed with breakers on all sides, and there is a shoal stretching from them at least a mile and a half to the southward, whence they may be truly called dangerous. The course from Botel Tobago Xima to these rocks is S.W. by W. and the distance about twelve or thirteen leagues: and the south end of Formosa, off which they lie, is in the latitude of 21° 50' north, and according to our most approved reckonings in 23° 50' west longitude from Tinian; though some of our accounts made its longitude above a degree more.

While we were passing by these rocks of Vele Rete there was an outcry of fire on the forecastle; this occasioned a general alarm, and the whole crew instantly flocked together in the utmost confusion; so that the officers found it difficult for some time to appease the uproar: but having at last reduced the people to order, it was perceived that the fire proceeded from the furnace, where the bricks being overheated, had begun to communicate the fire to the adjacent woodwork: hence by pulling down the brickwork it was extinguished with great facility. In the evening we were surprized with a view of what we at first sight conceived to have been breakers, but on a stricter examination we discerned them to be only a great number of fires on the Island of Formosa. These we imagined were intended by the inhabitants of that island as signals to invite us to touch there, but that suited not our views, we being impatient to reach the port of Macao as soon as possible. From Formosa we steered W.N.W. and sometimes still more northerly, proposing to fall in with the coast of China to the eastward of Pedro Blanco, as the rock so called is usually esteemed an excellent direction for ships bound to Macao. We continued this course till the following night, and then frequently brought to, to try if we were in soundings: but it was the 5th of November, at nine in the morning, before we struck ground, and then we had forty-two fathom, and a bottom of grey sand mixed with shells. When we had run about twenty miles farther W.N.W. we had thirty-five fathom and the same bottom; then our soundings gradually decreased from thirty-five to twenty-five fathom; but soon after, to our great surprize, they jumped back again to thirty fathom. This was an alteration we could not very well account for, since all the charts laid down regular soundings everywhere to the northward of Pedro Blanco. We for this reason kept a careful look out, and altered our course to N.N.W., and having run thirty-five miles in that direction, our soundings again gradually diminished to twenty-two fathom, and we at last, about midnight, got sight of the main land of China, bearing N. by W. four leagues distant. We then brought the ship to, with her head to the sea, proposing to wait for the morning; and before sunrise we were surprized to find ourselves in the midst of an incredible number of fishing boats, which seemed to cover the surface of the sea as far as the eye could reach. I may well style their number incredible, since I cannot believe, upon the lowest estimate, that there were so few as six thousand, most of them manned with five hands, and none of those we saw with less than three. Nor was this swarm of fishing vessels peculiar to that spot: for, as we ran on to the westward, we found them as abundant on every part of the coast. We at first doubted not but we should procure a pilot from them to carry us to Macao; but though many of them came close to the ship, and we endeavoured to tempt them by showing them a number of dollars, a most alluring bait for Chinese of all ranks and professions, yet we could not entice them on board us, nor procure any directions from them; though, I presume, the only difficulty was their not comprehending what we wanted them to do, as we could have no communication with them but by signs. Indeed we often pronounced the word Macao; but this we had reason to suppose they understood in a different sense, since in return they sometimes held up fish to us; and we afterwards learnt that the Chinese name for fish is of a somewhat similar sound. But what surprized us most was the inattention and want of curiosity which we observed in this herd of fishermen. A ship like ours had doubtless never been in these seas before; and perhaps there might not be one amongst all the Chinese, employed in that fishery, who had ever seen any European vessel; so that we might reasonably have expected to have been considered by them as a very uncommon and extraordinary object. But though many of their boats came close to the ship, yet they did not appear to be at all interested about us, nor did they deviate in the least from their course to regard us. Which insensibility, especially of maritime persons, in a matter relating to their own profession, is scarcely to be credited, did not the general behaviour of the Chinese in other instances furnish us with continual proofs of a similar turn of mind. It may perhaps be doubted whether this cast of temper be the effect of nature or education; but, in either case, it is an incontestable symptom of a mean and contemptible disposition, and is alone a sufficient confutation of the extravagant praises which many prejudiced writers have bestowed on the ingenuity and capacity of this nation. But to return.

Not being able to procure any information from the Chinese fishermen about our proper course to Macao, it was necessary for us to rely entirely on our own judgment: and concluding from our latitude, which was 22° 42' north, and from our soundings, which were only seventeen or eighteen fathoms, that we were yet to the eastward of Pedro Blanco, we still stood on to the westward. And for the assistance of future navigators, who may hereafter doubt what part of the coast they are upon, I must observe that besides the latitude of Pedro Blanco, which is 22° 18', and the depth of water, which to the westward of that rock is almost everywhere twenty fathoms, there is another circumstance which will be greatly assistant in judging of the position of the ship: this is the kind of ground; for, till we came within thirty miles of Pedro Blanco, we had constantly a sandy bottom; but there the bottom changed to soft and muddy, and continued so quite to the Island of Macao; only while we were in sight of Pedro Blanco, and very near it, we had for a short space a bottom of greenish mud, intermixed with sand.

It was on the 5th of November, at midnight, when we first made the coast of China. The next day, about two o'clock, as we were standing to the westward, within two leagues of the coast, still surrounded by fishing vessels in as great numbers as at first, we perceived that a boat ahead of us waved a red flag and blew a horn. This we considered as a signal made to us either to warn us of some shoal, or to inform us that they would supply us with a pilot. We therefore immediately sent our cutter to the boat to know their intentions, when we were soon convinced of our mistake, and found that this boat was the commodore of the whole fishery, and that the signal she had made was to order them all to leave off fishing and to return in shore, which we saw them instantly obey. Being thus disappointed we kept on our course, and shortly after passed by two very small rocks, which lay four or five miles distant from the shore. We were now in hourly expectation of descrying Pedro Blanco, but night came on before we got sight of it, and we therefore brought to till the morning, when we had the satisfaction to discover it. Pedro Blanco is a rock of a small circumference, but of a moderate height, resembling a sugar-loaf, both in shape and colour, and is about seven or eight miles distant from the shore. We passed within a mile and an half of it, and left it between us and the land, still keeping on to the westward; and the next day, being the 7th, we were abreast of a chain of islands which stretched from east to west. These, as we afterwards found, were called the islands of Lema; they are rocky and barren, and are, in all, small and great, fifteen or sixteen; but there are, besides, many more between them and the main land of China. We left these islands on the starboard side, passing within four miles of them, where we had twenty-four fathom water. Being still surrounded by fishing boats, we once more sent the cutter on board some of them to endeavour to procure a pilot, but we could not prevail; however, one of the Chinese directed us by signs to sail round the westermost of the islands or rocks of Lema, and then to hale up. We followed this direction, and in the evening came to an anchor in eighteen fathom; at which time the rock bore S.S.E. five miles distant, and the grand Ladrone W. by S. about two leagues distant. The rock is a most excellent direction for ships coming from the eastward: its latitude is 21° 52' north, and it bears from Pedro Blanco S. 64° W. distant twenty-one leagues. You are to leave it on the starboard side, and you may come within half a mile of it in eighteen fathom water: and then you must steer N. by W.½W. for the channel, between the island of Cabouce and Bamboo, which are to the northward of the grand Ladrone.

After having continued at anchor all night, we, on the 9th, at four in the morning, sent our cutter to sound the channel where we proposed to pass; but before the return of the cutter, a Chinese pilot put on board the Centurion, and told us, in broken Portuguese, he would carry the ship to Macao for thirty dollars: these were immediately paid him, and we then weighed and made sail. Soon after several other pilots came on board, who, to recommend themselves, produced certificates from the captains of many European ships they had pilotted in, but we still continued under the management of the Chinese whom we at first engaged. By this time we learnt that we were not far distant from Macao, and that there were in the river of Canton, at the mouth of which Macao lies, eleven European ships of which four were English. Our pilot carried us between the islands of Bamboo and Cabouce; but the winds hanging in the northern board, and the tides often setting strongly against us, we were obliged to come frequently to an anchor; so that we did not get through between the two islands till the 12th of November, at two in the morning. In passing through, our depth of water was from twelve to fourteen fathom; and as we steered on N. by W.½W. between a number of other islands, our soundings underwent little or no variation till towards the evening, when they encreased to seventeen fathom, in which depth, the wind dying away, we anchored not far from the Island of Lantoon, the largest of all this range of islands. At seven in the morning we weighed again, and steering W.S.W. and S.W. by W. we at ten o'clock happily anchored in Macao road, in five fathom water, the city of Macao bearing W. by N. three leagues distant; the peak of Lantoon E. by N. and the grand Ladrone S. by E., each of them about five leagues distant. Thus, after a fatiguing cruise of above two years' continuance, we once more arrived at an amicable port and a civilized country, where the conveniencies of life were in great plenty; where the naval stores, which we now extremely wanted, could be in some degree procured; where we expected the inexpressible satisfaction of receiving letters from our relations and friends; and where our countrymen, who were lately arrived from England, would be capable of answering the numerous enquiries we were prepared to make, both about public and private occurrences, and to relate to us many particulars which, whether of importance or not, would be listened to by us with the utmost attention, after the long suspension of our correspondence with our country, to which the nature of our undertaking had hitherto subjected us.

CHAPTER VII

PROCEEDINGS AT MACAO

The city of Macao, in the road of which we came to an anchor on the 12th of November, is a Portuguese settlement, situated in an island at the entrance of the river of Canton. It was formerly very rich and populous, and capable of defending itself against the power of the adjacent Chinese governors: but at present it is much fallen from its antient splendor; for though it is inhabited by Portuguese, and hath a governor nominated by the King of Portugal, yet it subsists merely by the sufferance of the Chinese, who can starve the place and dispossess the Portuguese whenever they please. This obliges the Governor of Macao to behave with great circumspection, and carefully to avoid every circumstance that may give offence to the Chinese. The river of Canton, off the mouth of which this city lies, is the only Chinese port frequented by European ships; and is, on many accounts, a more commodious harbour than Macao: but the peculiar customs of the Chinese, solely adapted to the entertainment of trading ships, and the apprehensions of the commodore, lest he should embroil the East India Company with the Regency of Canton if he should insist on being treated upon a different footing than the merchantmen, made him resolve rather to go to Macao than to venture into the river of Canton. Indeed, had not this reason prevailed with him, he himself had nothing to fear. For it is certain that he might have entered the port of Canton, and might have continued there as long as he pleased, and afterwards have left it again, although the whole power of the Chinese empire had been brought together to oppose him.

The commodore, not to depart from his usual prudence, no sooner came to an anchor in Macao road than he dispatched an officer with his compliments to the Portuguese Governor of Macao, requesting his excellency, by the same officer, to advise him in what manner it would be proper to act to avoid offending the Chinese, which, as there were then four of our ships in their power at Canton, was a matter worthy of attention. The difficulty which the commodore principally apprehended related to the duty usually paid by ships in the river of Canton, according to their tunnage. For, as men-of-war are exempted in every foreign harbour from all manner of port charges, the commodore thought it would be derogatory to the honour of his country to submit to this duty in China: and therefore he desired the advice of the Governor of Macao, who, being an European, could not be ignorant of the privileges claimed by a British man-of-war, and consequently might be expected to give us the best lights for obviating this perplexity. Our boat returned in the evening with two officers sent by the governor, who informed the commodore that it was the governor's opinion that if the Centurion ventured into the river of Canton the duty would certainly be expected; and therefore, if the commodore approved of it, he would send him a pilot, who should conduct us into another safe harbour, called the Typa, which was every way commodious for careening the ship (an operation we were resolved to begin upon as soon as possible) and where, in all probability, the above-mentioned duty would never be demanded.

This proposal the commodore agreed to, and in the morning weighed anchor, under the direction of the Portuguese pilot, and steered for the intended harbour. As we entered between two islands, which form the eastern passage to it, we found our soundings decreased to three fathom and a half. However, the pilot assuring us that this was the least depth we should meet with, we continued our course, till at length the ship stuck fast in the mud, with only eighteen foot water abaft; and, the tide of ebb making, the water sewed to sixteen feet, but the ship remained perfectly upright; we then sounded all round us, and discovering that the water deepened to the northward, we carried out our small bower with two hawsers an end, and at the return of the tide of flood hove the ship afloat, and a breeze springing up at the same instant, we set the fore-top sail and, slipping the hawser, ran into the harbour, where we moored in about five fathom water. This harbour of the Typa is formed by a number of islands, and is about six miles distant from Macao. Here we saluted the castle of Macao with eleven guns, which were returned by an equal number.

The next day the commodore paid a visit in person to the governor, and was saluted at his landing by eleven guns, which were returned by the Centurion. Mr. Alison's business in this visit was to solicit the governor to grant us a supply both of provisions and of such naval stores as were necessary to refit the ship. The governor seemed really inclined to do us all the service he could, and assured the commodore, in a friendly manner, that he would privately give us all the assistance in his power; but he at the same time frankly owned that he dared not openly to furnish us with anything we demanded unless we first produced an order for it from the Viceroy of Canton, since he himself neither received provisions for his garrison nor any other necessaries but by permission from the Chinese Government; and as they took care only to victual him from day to day, he was indeed no other than their vassal, whom they could at all times compel to submit to their own terms by laying an embargo on his provisions.

On this declaration of the governor, Mr. Anson resolved himself to go to Canton to procure a licence from the viceroy, and he accordingly hired a Chinese boat for himself and his attendants; but just as he was ready to embark, the hoppo, or Chinese custom-house officer of Macao, refused to grant a permit to the boat, and ordered the watermen not to proceed at their peril. The commodore at first endeavoured to prevail with the hoppo to withdraw his injunction and to grant a permit; and the governor of Macao employed his interest with the hoppo to the same purpose. But the officer continuing inflexible, Mr. Anson told him the next day that if the permit was any longer refused he would man and arm the Centurion's boats, asking the hoppo at the same time who he imagined would dare to oppose them in their passage. This threat immediately brought about what his intreaties had endeavoured at in vain; the permit was granted, and Mr. Anson went to Canton. On his arrival there, he consulted with the supercargoes and officers of the English ships how to procure an order from the viceroy for the necessaries he wanted: but in this he had reason to suppose that the advice they gave him, though well intended, was yet not the most prudent; for as it is the custom with these gentlemen never to apply to the supreme magistrate himself, whatever difficulties they labour under, but to transact all matters relating to the government by the mediation of the principal Chinese merchants, Mr. Anson was persuaded to follow the same method upon this occasion, the English promising, in which they were doubtless sincere, to exert all their interest to engage the merchants in his favour. Indeed, when the Chinese merchants were spoke to, they readily undertook the management of this business, and promised to answer for its success; but after near a month's delay, and reiterated excuses, during which interval they pretended to be often upon the point of compleating it, they at last, when they were pressed, and measures were taken for delivering a letter to the viceroy, threw off the mask, and declared they neither had made application to the viceroy, nor could they, as he was too great a man, they said, for them to approach on any occasion: and not contented with having themselves thus grossly deceived the commodore, they now used all their persuasion with the English at Canton to prevent them from intermeddling with anything that regarded him; representing to them that it would in all probability embroil them with the government, and occasion them a great deal of unnecessary trouble; which groundless insinuations had unluckily but too much weight with those they were intended to influence.

It may be difficult to assign a reason for this perfidious conduct of the Chinese merchants. Interest indeed is known to exert a boundless influence over the inhabitants of that empire; but how their interest could be affected in the present case is not easy to discover, unless they apprehended that the presence of a ship of force might damp their Manila trade, and therefore acted in this manner with a view of forcing the commodore to Batavia: though it might be as natural in this light to suppose that they would have been eager to have got him dispatched. I therefore rather impute their behaviour to the unparalleled pusillanimity of the nation, and to the awe they are under of the government, since such a ship as the Centurion, fitted for war only, having never been seen in those parts before, she was the horror of these dastards, and the merchants were in some degree terrified even with the idea of her, and could not think of applying to the viceroy, who is doubtless fond of all opportunities of fleecing them, without representing to themselves the occasion which a hungry and tyrannical magistrate might possibly find for censuring their intermeddling with so unusual a transaction, in which he might pretend the interest of the state was immediately concerned. However, be this as it may, the commodore was satisfied that nothing was to be done by the interposition of the merchants, as it was on his pressing them to deliver a letter to the viceroy that they had declared they durst not interfere in the affair, and had confessed that, notwithstanding all their pretences of serving him, they had not yet taken one step towards it. Mr. Anson therefore told them that he would proceed to Batavia and refit his ship there, but informed them at the same time that this was impossible to be done unless he was supplied with a stock of provisions sufficient for his passage. The merchants, on this, undertook to procure him provisions, though they assured him that it was what they durst not engage in openly, but they proposed to manage it in a clandestine manner by putting a quantity of bread, flour, and other provisions on board the English ships, which were now ready to sail, and these were to stop at the mouth of the Typa, where the Centurion's boats were to receive it. This article, which the merchants represented as a matter of great favour, being settled, the commodore, on the 16th of December, came back from Canton to the ship, seemingly resolved to proceed to Batavia to refit as soon as he should get his supplies of provisions on board.

But Mr. Anson (who never intended going to Batavia) found on his return to the Centurion that her main-mast was sprung in two places and that the leak was considerably increased; so that, upon the whole, he was fully satisfied that though he should lay in a sufficient stock of provisions, yet it would be impossible for him to put to sea without refitting. Since, if he left the port with his ship in her present condition she would be in the utmost danger of foundring; and therefore, notwithstanding the difficulties he had met with, he resolved at all events to have her hove down before he departed from Macao. He was fully convinced, by what he had observed at Canton, that his great caution not to injure the East India Company's affairs, and the regard he had shown to the advice of their officers, had occasioned all his perplexity. For he now saw clearly that if he had at first carried his ship into the river of Canton, and had immediately addressed himself to the mandarines, who are the chief officers of state, instead of employing the merchants to apply on his behalf, he would, in all probability, have had all his requests granted and would have been soon dispatched. He had already lost a month by the wrong measures he had pursued, but he resolved to lose as little more time as possible; and therefore, the 17th of December, being the next day after his return from Canton, he wrote a letter to the viceroy of that place acquainting him that he was commander-in-chief of a squadron of his Britannick Majesty's ships of war, which had been cruising for two years past in the South Seas against the Spaniards, who were at enmity with the king his master; that on his way back to England he had put into the port of Macao, having a considerable leak in his ship and being in great want of provisions, so that it was impossible for him to proceed on his voyage till his ship was repaired and he was supplied with the necessaries he wanted; that he had been at Canton in hopes of being admitted to a personal audience of his excellency; but being a stranger to the customs of the country, he had not been able to inform himself what steps were necessary to be taken to procure such an audience, and therefore was obliged to apply in this manner, to desire his excellency to give orders for his being permitted to employ carpenters and proper workmen to refit his ship, and to furnish himself with provisions and stores, that he might be enabled to pursue his voyage to Great Britain. Hoping, at the same time, that these orders would be issued with as little delay as possible lest it might occasion his loss of the season, and he might be prevented from departing till the next winter.

This letter was translated into the Chinese language, and the commodore delivered it himself to the hoppo or chief officer of the emperor's customs at Macao, desiring him to forward it to the Viceroy of Canton with as much expedition as he could. The officer at first seemed unwilling to take charge of it, and raised many difficulties about it; so that Mr. Anson suspected him of being in league with the merchants of Canton, who had always shewn a great apprehension of the commodore's having any immediate intercourse with the viceroy or mandarines; and therefore the commodore, not without some resentment, took back his letter from the hoppo and told him he would immediately send it to Canton in his own boat, and would give his officer positive orders not to return without an answer from the viceroy. The hoppo perceiving the commodore to be in earnest, and fearing to be called to an account for his refusal, begged to be entrusted with the letter, and promised to deliver it, and to procure an answer as soon as possible. And now it was presently seen how justly Mr. Anson had at last judged of the proper manner of dealing with the Chinese; for this letter was written but the 17th of December, as hath been already observed; and on the 19th in the morning a mandarine of the first rank, who was governor of the city of Janson, together with two mandarines of an inferior class and a considerable retinue of officers and servants, having with them eighteen half gallies furnished with music, and decorated with a great number of streamers, and full of men, came to grapnel ahead of the Centurion; whence the mandarine sent a message to the commodore, telling him that he (the mandarine) was ordered by the Viceroy of Canton to examine the condition of the ship; therefore desiring the ship's boat might be sent to fetch him on board. The Centurion's boat was immediately dispatched, and preparations were made for receiving him; in particular a hundred of the most sightly of the crew were uniformly dressed in the regimentals of the marines, and were drawn up under arms on the main-deck against his arrival. When he entered the ship he was saluted by the drums and what other military music there was on board, and passing by the new-formed guard, he was met by the commodore on the quarter-deck, who conducted him to the great cabin. Here the mandarine explained his commission, declaring that he was directed to examine all the articles mentioned in the commodore's letter to the viceroy, and to confront them with the representation that had been given of them: that he was in the first place instructed to inspect the leak, and had for that purpose brought with him two Chinese carpenters; and that for the more regular dispatch of his business he had every head of enquiry separately wrote down on a sheet of paper, with a void space opposite to it, where he was to insert such information and remarks thereon as he could procure by his own observation.

This mandarine appeared to be a person of very considerable parts, and endowed with more frankness and honesty than is to be found in the generality of the Chinese. After the necessary inspections had been made, particularly about the leak, which the Chinese carpenters reported to be to the full as dangerous as it had been described, and consequently that it was impossible for the Centurion to proceed to sea without being refitted, the mandarine expressed himself satisfied with the account given in the commodore's letter. And this magistrate, as he was more intelligent than any other person of his nation that came to our knowledge, so likewise was he more curious and inquisitive, viewing each part of the ship with extraordinary attention, and appearing greatly surprized at the largeness of the lower deck guns and at the weight and size of the shot. The commodore, observing his astonishment, thought this a proper opportunity to convince the Chinese of the prudence of granting him all his demands in the most speedy and ample manner: he therefore told the mandarine and those who were with him that besides the request he made for a general licence to furnish himself with whatever his present situation required, he had a particular complaint to prefer against the proceedings of the custom-house of Macao; that at his first arrival the Chinese boats had brought on board him plenty of greens and variety of fresh provisions for daily use: that though they had always been paid to their full satisfaction, yet the custom-house officers at Macao had soon forbid them; by which means he was deprived of those refreshments which were of the utmost consequence to the health of his men after their long and sickly voyage; that as they, the mandarines, had informed themselves of his wants and were eye-witnesses of the force and strength of his ship, they might be satisfied it was not because he had no power to supply himself that he desired the permission of the government to purchase what provisions he stood in need of, since he presumed they were convinced that the Centurion alone was capable of destroying the whole navigation of the port of Canton, or of any other port in China, without running the least risque from all the force the Chinese could collect; that it was true this was not the manner of proceeding between nations in friendship with each other; but it was likewise true that it was not customary for any nation to permit the ships of their friends to starve and sink in their ports, when those friends had money to purchase necessaries, and only desired liberty to lay it out; that they must confess he and his people had hitherto behaved with great modesty and reserve; but that, as his distresses were each day increasing, famine would at last prove too strong for any restraint, and necessity was acknowledged in all countries to be superior to every other law; and therefore it could not be expected that his crew would long continue to starve in the midst of that plenty to which their eyes were every day witnesses. To this the commodore added (though perhaps with a less serious air) that if, by the delay of supplying him with provisions, his men should, from the impulses of hunger, be obliged to turn cannibals, and to prey upon their own species, it was easy to be foreseen that, independent of their friendship to their comrades, they would in point of luxury prefer the plump well-fed Chinese to their own emaciated ship-mates. The first mandarine acquiesced in the justness of this reasoning, and told the commodore that he should that night proceed for Canton; that on his arrival a council of mandarines would be summoned, of which he was a member, and that, by being employed in the present commission, he was of course the commodore's advocate; that as he was himself fully convinced of the urgency of Mr. Anson's necessity, he did not doubt but on the representation he should make of what he had seen, the council would be of the same opinion, and that all which was demanded would be amply and speedily granted; that with regard to the commodore's complaint of the custom-house of Macao, this he would undertake to rectify immediately by his own authority. And then desiring a list to be given him of the quantity of provision necessary for the expence of the ship during one day, he wrote a permit under it, and delivered it to one of his attendants, directing him to see that quantity sent on board early every morning; which order from that time forwards was punctually complied with.

When this weighty affair was thus in some degree regulated, the commodore invited him and his two attendant mandarines to dinner, telling them at the same time that if his provision, either in kind or quantity, was not what they might expect, they must thank themselves for having confined him to so hard an allowance. One of his dishes was beef, which the Chinese all dislike, tho' Mr. Anson was not apprized of it. This seems to be derived from the Indian superstition, which for some ages past has made a great progress in China. However, his guests did not entirely fast, for the three mandarines completely finished the white part of four large fowls. They were indeed extremely embarrassed with their knives and forks, and were quite incapable of making use of them: so that after some fruitless attempts to help themselves, which were sufficiently aukward, one of the attendants was obliged to cut their meat in small pieces for them. But whatever difficulty they might have in complying with the European manner of eating, they seemed not to be novices at drinking. In this part of the entertainment the commodore excused himself under the pretence of illness; but there being another gentleman present, of a florid and jovial complexion, the chief mandarine clapped him on the shoulder and told him by the interpreter that certainly he could not plead sickness, and therefore insisted on his bearing him company; and that gentleman perceiving that after they had dispatched four or five bottles of Frontiniac the mandarine still continued unruffled, he ordered a bottle of citron-water to be brought up, which the Chinese seemed much to relish; and this being near finished, they arose from table in appearance cool and uninfluenced by what they had drank; and the commodore having, according to custom, made the mandarine a present, they all departed in the same vessels that brought them.

After their departure the commodore with great impatience expected the resolution of the council, and the proper licences to enable him to refit the ship. For it must be observed, as hath already appeared from the preceding narration, that the Chinese were forbid to have any dealings with him, so that he could neither purchase stores nor necessaries, nor did any kind of workmen dare to engage themselves in his service until the permission of the government was first obtained. And in the execution of these particular injunctions the magistrates never fail of exercising great severity, since, notwithstanding the fustian elogiums bestowed upon them by the Romish missionaries residing in the East, and their European copiers, they are composed of the same fragil materials with the rest of mankind, and often make use of the authority of the law, not to suppress crimes, but to enrich themselves by the pillage of those who commit them. This is the more easily effected in China, because capital punishments are rare in that country, the effeminate genius of the nation, and their strong attachment to lucre, disposing them rather to make use of fines. And as from these there arises no inconsiderable profit to those who compose their tribunals, it is obvious enough that prohibitions of all kinds, particularly such as the alluring prospect of great profit may often tempt the subject to infringe, cannot but be favourite institutions in such a government.

A short time before this, Captain Saunders took his passage to England on board a Swedish ship, and was charged with dispatches from the commodore; and in the month of December, Captain Mitchel, Colonel Cracherode, and Mr. Taswel, one of the agent victuallers, with his nephew Mr. Charles Herriot, embarked on board some of our company's ships; and I, having obtained the commodore's leave to return home, embarked with them. I must observe, too, having omitted it before, that whilst we lay at Macao, we were informed by the officers of our Indiamen that the Severn and Pearl, the two ships of our squadron which had separated from us off Cape Noir, were safely arrived at Rio Janeiro on the coast of Brazil. I have formerly taken notice that at the time of their separation we suspected them to be lost: and there were many reasons which greatly favoured this suspicion, for we knew that the Severn in particular was extremely sickly; which was the more obvious to the rest of the ships, as in the preceding part of the voyage her commander, Captain Legg, had been remarkable for his exemplary punctuality in keeping his station, and yet, during the last ten days before his separation, his crew was so diminished and enfeebled, that with his utmost efforts he could not possibly maintain his proper position with his wonted exactness. The extraordinary sickness on board him was by many imputed to the ship, which was new, and on that account was believed to be the more unhealthy; but whatever was the cause of it, the Severn was by much the most sickly of the squadron, since before her departure from St. Catherine's she buryed more men than any of them, insomuch that the commodore was obliged to recruit her with a number of fresh hands; and, the mortality still continuing on board her, she was supplied with men a second time at sea, after our setting sail from St. Julians; yet, notwithstanding these different reinforcements, she was at last reduced to the distressed condition I have already mentioned. Hence the commodore himself firmly believed she was lost, and therefore it was with great joy we received the news of her and the Pearl's safety, after the strong persuasion, which had so long prevailed amongst us, of their having both perished. But to proceed with the transactions between Mr. Anson and the Chinese.

Notwithstanding the favourable disposition of the mandarine Governor of Janson at his leaving Mr. Anson, several days were elapsed before there was any advice from him; and Mr. Anson was privately informed there were great debates in council upon his affair, partly perhaps owing to its being so unusual a case, and in part to the influence, as I suppose, of the intrigues of the French at Canton: for they had a countryman and fast friend residing on the spot who spoke the language well, and was not unacquainted with the venality of the government, nor with the persons of several of the magistrates, and consequently could not be at a loss for means of traversing the assistance desired by Mr. Anson. Indeed this opposition of the French was not merely the effect of national prejudice, or a contrariety of political interests; but was in good measure owing to vanity, a motive of much more weight with the generality of mankind than any attachment to the public service of the community. For the French pretending their Indiamen to be men-of-war, their officers were apprehensive that any distinction granted to Mr. Anson on account of his bearing the king's commission would render them less considerable in the eyes of the Chinese, and would establish a prepossession at Canton in favour of ships of war, by which they, as trading vessels, would suffer in their importance. And I wish the affectation of endeavouring to pass for men-of-war, and the fear of sinking in the estimation of the Chinese, if the Centurion was treated in a different manner from themselves, had been confined to the officers of the French ships only. However, notwithstanding all these obstacles, it should seem that the representation of the commodore to the mandarines, of the facility with which he could right himself if justice were denied him, had at last its effect, since, on the 6th of January, in the morning, the Governor of Janson, the commodore's advocate, sent down the Viceroy of Canton's warrant for the refitment of the Centurion, and for supplying her people with all they wanted. Having now the necessary licences, a number of Chinese smiths and carpenters went on board the next day to treat about the work they were to do, all which they proposed to undertake by the great. They demanded at first to the amount of a thousand pounds sterling for the repairs of the ship, the boats, and the masts. This the commodore seemed to think an unreasonable sum, and endeavoured to persuade them to work by the day; but that was a method they would not hearken to; so it was at last agreed that the carpenters should have to the amount of about six hundred pounds for their work, and that the smiths should be paid for their iron-work by weight, allowing them at the rate of three pounds a hundred nearly for the small work, and forty-six shillings for the large.

This being regulated, the commodore next exerted himself to get the most important business of the whole compleated; I mean the heaving down the Centurion and examining the state of her bottom. The first lieutenant therefore was dispatched to Canton to hire two country vessels, called in their language junks, one of them being intended to heave down by, and the other to serve as a magazine for the powder and ammunition: whilst at the same time the ground was smoothed on one of the neighbouring islands, and a large tent was pitched for lodging the lumber and provisions, and near a hundred Chinese caulkers were soon set to work on the decks and sides of the ship. But all these preparations, and the getting ready the careening gear, took up a great deal of time, for the Chinese caulkers, though they worked very well, were far from being expeditious. Besides, it was the 26th of January before the junks arrived, and the necessary materials, which were to be purchased at Canton, came down very slowly, partly from the distance of the place, and partly from the delays and backwardness of the Chinese merchants. And in this interval Mr. Anson had the additional perplexity to discover that his fore-mast was broken asunder above the upper-deck partners, and was only kept together by the fishes which had been formerly clapt upon it.

However, the Centurion's people made the most of their time, and exerted themselves the best they could; and as by clearing the ship the carpenters were enabled to come at the leak, they took care to secure that effectually whilst the other preparations were going forwards. The leak was found to be below the fifteen-foot mark, and was principally occasioned by one of the bolts being wore away and loose in the joining of the stern, where it was scarfed.

At last, all things being prepared, they, on the 22d of February, in the morning, hove out the first course of the Centurion's starboard-side, and had the satisfaction to find that her bottom appeared sound and good; and the next day (having by that time compleated the new sheathing of the first course) they righted her again, to set up anew the careening gear, which had stretched much. Thus they continued heaving down and often righting the ship, from a suspicion of their careening tackle, till the 3d of March, when, having compleated the paying and sheathing the bottom, which proved to be everywhere very sound, they for the last time righted the ship, to their great joy, since not only the fatigue of careening had been considerable, but they had been apprehensive of being attacked by the Spaniards whilst the ship was thus incapacitated for defence. Nor were their fears altogether groundless, for they learnt afterwards, by a Portuguese vessel, that the Spaniards at Manila had been informed that the Centurion was in the Typa, and intended to careen there, and that thereupon the governor had summoned his council, and had proposed to them to endeavour to burn her whilst she was careening, which was an enterprize which, if properly conducted, might have put them in great danger. It was farther reported that this scheme was not only proposed, but resolved on, and that a captain of a vessel had actually undertaken to perform the business for forty thousand dollars, which he was not to receive unless he succeeded; but the governor pretending that there was no treasure in the royal chest, and insisting that the merchants should advance the money, and they refusing to comply with the demand, the affair was dropped. Perhaps the merchants suspected that the whole was only a pretext to get forty thousand dollars from them, and indeed this was affirmed by some who bore the governor no good-will, but with what truth it is difficult to ascertain.

As soon as the Centurion was righted, they took on board her powder and gunners' stores, and proceeded with getting in their guns as fast as possible, and then used their utmost expedition in repairing the fore-mast, and in compleating the other articles of her refitment. But whilst they were thus employed, they were alarmed on the 10th of March by a Chinese fisherman, who brought them intelligence that he had been on board a large Spanish ship off the Grand Ladrone, and that there were two more in company with her. He added several particulars to his relation, as that he had brought one of their officers to Macao, and that, on this, boats went off early in the morning from Macao to them: and the better to establish the belief of his veracity, he said he desired no money if his information should not prove true. This was presently believed to be the fore-mentioned expedition from Manila, and the commodore immediately fitted his cannon and small arms in the best manner he could for defence; and having then his pinnace and cutter in the offing, who had been ordered to examine a Portuguese vessel which was getting under sail, he sent them the advice he had received, and directed them to look out strictly. Indeed, no Spanish ships ever appeared, and they were soon satisfied the whole of the story was a fiction, though it was difficult to conceive what reason could induce the fellow to be at such extraordinary pains to impose on them.

It was the beginning of April when they had new rigged the ship, stowed their provisions and water on board, and had fitted her for the sea; and before this time the Chinese grew very uneasy, and extremely desirous that she should be gone, either not knowing, or pretending not to believe, that this was a point the commodore was as eagerly set on as they could be. At length, about the 3d of April, two mandarine boats came on board from Macao to press him to leave their port, and this having been often urged before, though there had been no pretence to suspect Mr. Anson of any affected delays, he at this last message answered them in a determined tone, desiring them to give him no further trouble, for he would go when he thought proper, and not sooner. After this rebuke the Chinese (though it was not in their power to compel him to depart) immediately prohibited all provisions from being carried on board him, and took such care their injunctions should be complied with, that from thence forwards nothing could be purchased at any rate whatever.

The 6th of April the Centurion weighed from the Typa, and warped to the southward; and by the 15th she was got into Macao road, compleating her water as she past along, so that there remained now very few articles more to attend to, and her whole business being finished by the 19th, she, at three in the afternoon of that day, weighed and made sail, and stood to sea.

CHAPTER VIII

FROM MACAO TO CAPE ESPIRITU SANTO—THE TAKING OF THE
MANILA GALEON, AND RETURNING BACK AGAIN

The commodore was now got to sea, with his ship well refitted, his stores replenished, and an additional stock of provisions on board. His crew too was somewhat reinforced, for he had entered twenty-three men during his stay at Macao, the greatest part of them Lascars or Indian sailors, and the rest Dutch. He gave out at Macao that he was bound to Batavia, and thence to England, and though the westerly monsoon was now set in, when that passage is considered as impracticable, yet, by the confidence he had expressed in the strength of his ship, and the dexterity of his hands, he had persuaded not only his own crew, but the people at Macao likewise, that he proposed to try this unusual experiment, so that there were many letters sent on board him by the inhabitants of Canton and Macao for their friends at Batavia.

But his real design was of a very different nature: for he supposed that instead of one annual ship from Acapulco to Manila, there would be this year, in all probability, two, since, by being before Acapulco, he had prevented one of them from putting to sea the preceding season. He therefore, not discouraged by his former disasters, resolved again to risque the casualties of the Pacific Ocean, and to cruise for these returning vessels off Cape Espiritu Santo on the island of Samal, which is the first land they always make at the Philippine Islands: and as June is generally the month in which they arrive there, he doubted not but he should get to his intended station time enough to intercept them. It is true they were said to be stout vessels, mounting forty-four guns apiece, and carrying above five hundred hands, and might be expected to return in company, and he himself had but two hundred and twenty-seven hands on board, of which near thirty were boys. But this disproportion of strength did not deter him, as he knew his ship to be much better fitted for a sea engagement than theirs, and as he had reason to expect that his men would exert themselves after a most extraordinary manner when they had in view the immense wealth of these Manila galeons.

This project the commodore had resolved on in his own thoughts ever since his leaving the coast of Mexico, and the greatest mortification which he received from the various delays he had met with in China, was his apprehension lest he might be thereby so long retarded as to let the galeons escape him. Indeed, at Macao it was incumbent on him to keep these views extremely secret, for there being a great intercourse and a mutual connection of interests between that port and Manila, he had reason to fear that if his designs were discovered, intelligence would be immediately sent to Manila, and measures would be taken to prevent the galeons from falling into his hands. But being now at sea, and entirely clear of the coast, he summoned all his people on the quarter-deck and informed them of his resolution to cruise for the two Manila ships, of whose wealth they were not ignorant. He told them he should chuse a station where he could not fail of meeting with them, and though they were stout ships, and full manned, yet, if his own people behaved with their accustomed spirit, he was certain he should prove too hard for them both, and that one of them at least could not fail of becoming his prize. He further added that many ridiculous tales had been propagated about the strength of the sides of these ships, and their being impenetrable to cannon shot; that these fictions had been principally invented to palliate the cowardice of those who had formerly engaged them, but he hoped there were none of those present weak enough to give credit to so absurd a story. For his own part, he did assure them upon his word that, whenever he fell in with them, he would fight them so near that they should find his bullets, instead of being stopped by one of their sides, should go through them both.

This speech of the commodore was received by his people with great joy, since no sooner had he ended than they expressed their approbation, according to naval custom, by three strenuous cheers, and declared their determination to succeed, or perish, whenever the opportunity presented itself. Immediately too their hopes, which on their departure from the coast of Mexico had entirely subsided, were again revived, and they persuaded themselves that notwithstanding the various casualties and disappointments they had hitherto met with, they should yet be repaid the price of their fatigues, and should at last return home enriched with the spoils of the enemy. For, firmly relying on the assurances of the commodore, that they should certainly meet with the galeons, they were all of them too sanguine to doubt a moment of mastering them, so that they considered themselves as having them already in their possession. And this confidence was so universally spread through the whole ship's company, that the commodore, who had taken some Chinese sheep to sea with him for his own provision, enquiring one day of his butcher why he had lately seen no mutton at his table, and asking him if all the sheep were killed, the fellow very seriously replied that there were indeed two sheep left, but that if his honour would give him leave, he proposed to keep those for the entertainment of the general of the galeons.

When the Centurion left the port of Macao, she stood for some days to the westward, and, on the 1st of May, they saw part of the island of Formosa; and steering thence to the southward, they, on the 4th of May, were in the latitude of the Bashee Islands, as laid down by Dampier; but they suspected his account of inaccuracy, as they knew that he had been considerably mistaken in the latitude of the south end of Formosa, and therefore they kept a good look-out, and about seven in the evening discovered from the mast-head five small islands, which were judged to be the Bashees. As they afterwards saw Botel Tobago Xima, they by this means found an opportunity of correcting the position of the Bashee Islands, which had been hitherto laid down twenty-five leagues too far to the westward: for by their observations they esteemed the middle of these islands to be in 21° 4' north, and to bear from Botel Tobago Xima S.S.E. twenty leagues distant, that island itself being in 21° 57' north.

After getting a sight of the Bashee Islands, they stood between the S. and S.W. for Cape Espiritu Santo, and the 20th of May at noon they first discovered that cape, which about four o'clock they brought to bear S.S.W. near eleven leagues distant. It appeared to be of a moderate height, with several round hummocks on it. As it was known that there were centinels placed upon this cape to make signals to the Acapulco ship when she first falls in with the land, the commodore immediately tacked, and ordered the top-gallant sails to be taken in, to prevent being discovered. And this being the station where it was resolved to cruise for the galeons, they kept the cape between the south and the west, and endeavoured to confine themselves between the latitude of 12° 50' and 13° 5', the cape itself lying, by their observations, in 12° 40' north, and in 4° of east longitude from Botel Tobago Xima.

It was the last of May, by the foreign stile, when they arrived off this cape, and the month of June, by the same stile, being that in which the Manila ships are usually expected, the Centurion's people were now waiting each hour with the utmost impatience for the happy crisis which was to balance the account of all their past calamities. As from this time there was but small employment for the crew, the commodore ordered them almost every day to be exercised in the working of the great guns, and in the use of their small arms. This had been his practice, more or less, at every convenient season during the whole course of his voyage, and the advantages which he received from it in his engagement with the galeon were an ample recompence for all his care and attention. Indeed, it should seem that there are few particulars of a commander's duty of more importance, how much soever it may have been sometimes overlooked or misunderstood: since it will, I suppose, be confessed that in two ships of war equal in the number of their men and guns, the disproportion of strength arising from a greater or less dexterity in the use of their great guns and small arms is what can scarcely be ballanced by any other circumstances whatever. For, as these are the weapons with which they are to engage, what greater inequality can there be betwixt two contending parties than that one side should perfectly understand the management of them, and should have the skill to employ them in the most effectual manner for the annoyance of their enemy; while the other side should, by their awkward handling of their arms, render them rather terrible to themselves than mischievous to their antagonist? This seems so obvious and natural a conclusion, that a person unacquainted with these matters would suppose the first care of a commander to be the training his people to the ready use of their arms.

But human affairs are not always conducted by the plain dictates of common sense. There are many other principles which influence our transactions, and there is one in particular, which tho' of a very erroneous complexion, is scarcely ever excluded from our most serious deliberations; I mean custom, or the practice of those who have preceded us. This is usually a power too mighty for reason to grapple with, and is often extremely troublesome to those who oppose it, since it has much of superstition in its nature, and pursues all those who question its authority with unrelenting vehemence. However, in these latter ages of the world, some lucky encroachments have been made upon its prerogative, and it may surely be expected that the gentlemen of the navy, whose particular profession hath within a few years been considerably improved by a number of new inventions, will of all others be the readiest to give up any usage which has nothing to plead in its behalf but prescription, and will not suppose that every branch of their business hath already received all the perfection of which it is capable. Indeed, it must be owned that if a dexterity in the use of small arms, for instance, hath been sometimes less attended to on board our ships of war than might have been wished for, it hath been rather owing to unskilful methods of teaching it than to negligence: since the common sailors, how strongly soever attached to their own prejudices, are very quick-sighted in finding out the defects of others, and have ever shewn a great contempt for the formalities practised in the training of land troops to the use of their arms. But when those who have undertaken to instruct the seamen have contented themselves with inculcating only what was useful, in the simplest manner, they have constantly found their people sufficiently docile, and the success hath even exceeded their expectation. Thus on board Mr. Anson's ship, where they were taught no more of the manual exercise than the shortest method of loading with cartridges, and were constantly trained to fire at a mark, which was usually hung at the yard-arm, and where some little reward was given to the most expert, the whole crew, by this management, were rendered extremely skilful, for besides an uncommon readiness in loading, they were all of them good marksmen, and some of them most extraordinary ones. Whence I doubt not but, in the use of small arms, they were more than a match for double their number who had not been habituated to the same kind of exercise. But to return.

It was the last of May, N.S., as hath been already said, when the Centurion arrived off Cape Espiritu Santo, and consequently the next day the month began in which the galeons were to be expected. The commodore therefore made all necessary preparations for receiving them, hoisting out his long-boat and lashing her alongside, that the ship might be ready for engaging if they fell in with the galeons during the night. All this time too he was very solicitous to keep at such a distance from the cape as not to be discovered. But it hath been since learnt, that notwithstanding his care, he was seen from the land, and advice of him was sent to Manila, where, tho' it was at first disbelieved, yet, on reiterated intelligence (for it seems he was seen more than once), the merchants were alarmed, and the governor was applied to, who undertook (the commerce supplying the necessary sums) to fit out a force consisting of two ships of thirty-two guns, one of twenty guns, and two sloops of ten guns each, to attack the Centurion on her station. With this view some of these vessels actually weighed, but the principal ship not being ready, and the monsoon being against them, the commerce and the governor disagreed, so that the enterprize was laid aside. This frequent discovery of the Centurion from the shore was somewhat extraordinary, since the pitch of the cape is not high, and she usually kept from ten to fifteen leagues distant, though once indeed, by an indraught of the tide, as was supposed, they found themselves in the morning within seven leagues of the land.

As the month of June advanced, the expectancy and impatience of the commodore's people each day increased. And I think no better idea can be given of their great eagerness on this occasion than by copying a few paragraphs from the journal of an officer who was then on board, as it will, I presume, be a more natural picture of the full attachment of their thoughts to the business of their cruise than can be given by any other means. The paragraphs I have selected, as they occur in order of time, are as follow:—

"May 31. Exercising our men at their quarters, in great expectation of meeting with the galeons very soon, this being the eleventh of June, their stile."

"June 3. Keeping in our stations, and looking out for the galeons."

"June 5. Begin now to be in great expectation, this being the middle of June, their stile."

"June 11. Begin to grow impatient at not seeing the galeons."

"June 13. The wind having blown fresh easterly for the forty-eight hours past, gives us great expectations of seeing the galeons soon."

"June 15. Cruising on and off, and looking out strictly."

"June 19. This being the last day of June, N.S., the galeons, if they arrive at all, must appear soon."

From these samples it is sufficiently evident how compleatly the treasure of the galeons had engrossed their imagination, and how anxiously they passed the latter part of their cruise, when the certainty of the arrival of those vessels was dwindled down to probability only, and that probability became each hour more and more doubtful. However, on the 20th of June, O.S., being just a month after their gaining their station, they were relieved out of this state of uncertainty, for at sunrise they discovered a sail from the mast-head, in the S.E. quarter. On this, a general joy spread through the whole ship, for they had no doubt but this was one of the galeons, and they expected soon to descry the other. The commodore instantly stood towards her, and at half an hour after seven they were near enough to see her from the Centurion's deck, at which time the galeon fired a gun, and took in her top-gallant sails. This was supposed to be a signal to her consort to hasten her up, and therefore the Centurion fired a gun to leeward to amuse her. The commodore was surprized to find that during all this interval the galeon did not change her course, but continued to bear down upon him; for he hardly believed, what afterwards appeared to be the case, that she knew his ship to be the Centurion, and resolved to fight him.

About noon the commodore was little more than a league distant from the galeon, and could fetch her wake, so that she could not now escape; and, no second ship appearing, it was concluded that she had been separated from her consort. Soon after, the galeon haled up her fore-sail and brought to under top-sails, with her head to the northward, hoisting Spanish colours, and having the standard of Spain flying at the top-gallant mast-head. Mr. Anson in the meantime had prepared all things for an engagement on board the Centurion, and had taken every possible measure, both for the most effectual exertion of his small strength, and for the avoiding the confusion and tumult too frequent in actions of this kind. He picked out about thirty of his choicest hands and best marksmen, whom he distributed into his tops, and who fully answered his expectation by the signal services they performed. As he had not hands enough remaining to quarter a sufficient number to each great gun in the customary manner, he therefore, on his lower tire, fixed only two men to each gun, who were to be solely employed in loading it, whilst the rest of his people were divided into different gangs of ten or twelve men each, who were continually moving about the decks to run out and fire such guns as were loaded. By this management he was enabled to make use of all his guns, and instead of whole broadsides, with intervals between them, he kept up a constant fire without intermission, whence he doubted not to procure very signal advantages. For it is common with the Spaniards to fall down upon the decks when they see a broadside preparing, and to continue in that posture till it is given, after which they rise again, and, presuming the danger to be for some time over, work their guns, and fire with great briskness, till another broadside is ready. But the firing gun by gun, in the manner directed by the commodore, rendered this practice of theirs impossible.

The Centurion being thus prepared, and nearing the galeon apace, there happened, a little after noon, several squalls of wind and rain, which often obscured the galeon from their sight; but whenever it cleared up they observed her resolutely lying to. Towards one o'clock, the Centurion hoisted her broad pendant and colours, she being then within gun-shot of the enemy, and the commodore perceiving the Spaniards to have neglected clearing their ship till that time, as he saw them throwing overboard cattle and lumber, he gave orders to fire upon them with the chace guns, to disturb them in their work, and prevent them from compleating it, though his general directions had been not to engage before they were within pistol-shot. The galeon returned the fire with two of her stern chace; and the Centurion getting her sprit-sail yard fore and aft, that, if necessary, she might be ready for boarding, the Spaniards, in a bravado, rigged their sprit-sail yard fore and aft likewise. Soon after, the Centurion came abreast of the enemy within pistol-shot, keeping to the leeward of them, with a view of preventing their putting before the wind and gaining the port of Jalapay, from which they were about seven leagues distant. And now the engagement began in earnest, and for the first half-hour Mr. Anson over-reached the galeon and lay on her bow, where, by the great wideness of his ports, he could traverse almost all his guns upon the enemy, whilst the galeon could only bring a part of hers to bear. Immediately on the commencement of the action, the mats with which the galeon had stuffed her netting took fire and burnt violently, blazing up half as high as the mizen-top. This accident, supposed to be caused by the Centurion's wads, threw the enemy into the utmost terror, and also alarmed the commodore, for he feared lest the galeon should be burnt, and lest he himself too might suffer by her driving on board him. However, the Spaniards at last freed themselves from the fire, by cutting away the netting and tumbling the whole mass, which was in flames, into the sea. All this interval the Centurion kept her first advantageous position, firing her cannon with great regularity and briskness, whilst at the same time the galeon's decks lay open to her top-men, who having at their first volley driven the Spaniards from their tops, made prodigious havock with their small arms, killing or wounding every officer but one that appeared on the quarter-deck, and wounding in particular the general of the galeon himself. Thus the action proceeded for at least half an hour; but then the Centurion lost the superiority arising from her original situation, and was close alongside the galeon, and the enemy continued to fire briskly for near an hour longer; yet even in this posture the commodore's grape-shot swept their decks so effectually, and the number of their slain and wounded became so considerable, that they began to fall into great disorder, especially as the general, who was the life of the action, was no longer capable of exerting himself. Their confusion was visible from on board the commodore, for the ships were so near that some of the Spanish officers were seen running about with much assiduity, to prevent the desertion of their men from their quarters. But all their endeavours were in vain, for after having, as a last effort, fired five or six guns with more judgment than usual, they yielded up the contest, and, the galeon's colours being singed off the ensign staff in the beginning of the engagement, she struck the standard at her main top-gallant mast-head; the person who was employed to perform this office having been in imminent peril of being killed, had not the commodore, who perceived what he was about, given express orders to his people to desist from firing.

Thus was the Centurion possessed of this rich prize, amounting in value to near a million and a half of dollars. She was called the Nostra Signora de Cabadonga, and was commanded by General Don Jeronimo de Mentero, a Portuguese, who was the most approved officer for skill and courage of any employed in that service. The galeon was much larger than the Centurion, and had five hundred and fifty men, and thirty-six guns mounted for action, besides twenty-eight pedreroes in her gunwale, quarters, and tops, each of which carried a four-pound ball. She was very well furnished with small arms, and was particularly provided against boarding, both by her close quarters, and by a strong network of two-inch rope which was laced over her waist, and was defended by half-pikes. She had sixty-seven killed in the action, and eighty-four wounded, whilst the Centurion had only two killed, and a lieutenant and sixteen wounded, all of whom but one recovered: of so little consequence are the most destructive arms in untutored and unpractised hands.

The treasure thus taken by the Centurion having been, for at least eighteen months, the great object of their hopes, it is impossible to describe the transport on board when, after all their reiterated disappointments, they at last saw their wishes accomplished. But their joy was near being suddenly damped by a most tremendous incident, for no sooner had the galeon struck, than one of the lieutenants coming to Mr. Anson to congratulate him on his prize, whispered him at the same time that the Centurion was dangerously on fire near the powder-room. The commodore received this dreadful news without any apparent emotion, and taking care not to alarm his people, gave the necessary orders for extinguishing the fire, which was happily done in a short time, though its appearance at first was extremely terrible. It seems some cartridges had been blown up by accident between decks, and the blast had communicated its flame to a quantity of oakum in the after hatchway, near the after powder-room, where the great smother and smoke of the oakum occasioned the apprehension of a more extended and mischievous conflagration. All hopes too of avoiding its fury by escaping on board the prize had instantly vanished, for at the same moment the galeon fell on board the Centurion on the starboard quarter, though she was fortunately cleared without doing or receiving any considerable damage.

The commodore appointed the Manila vessel to be a post ship in his Majesty's service, and gave the command of her to Mr. Saumarez, his first lieutenant, who before night sent on board the Centurion all the Spanish prisoners, except such as were thought the most proper to be retained to assist in navigating the galeon. And now the commodore learnt from some of these prisoners that the other ship, which he had kept in the port of Acapulco the preceding year, instead of returning in company with the present prize, as was expected, had set sail from Acapulco alone much sooner than usual, and had, in all probability, got into the port of Manila long before the Centurion arrived off Cape Espiritu Santo, so that Mr. Anson, notwithstanding his present success, had great reason to regret his loss of time at Macao, which prevented him from taking two rich prizes instead of one.

The commodore, when the action was ended, resolved to make the best of his way with his prize for the river of Canton, being the meantime fully employed in securing his prisoners, and in removing the treasure from on board the galeon into the Centurion. The last of these operations was too important to be postponed, for as the navigation to Canton was thro' seas but little known, and where, from the season of the year, very tempestuous weather might be expected, it was of great consequence that the treasure should be sent on board the Centurion, which ship, by the presence of the commander-in-chief, the larger number of her hands, and her other advantages, was doubtless better provided against all the casualties of winds and seas than the galeon. And the securing the prisoners was a matter of still more consequence, as not only the possession of the treasure but the lives of the captors depended thereon. This was indeed an article which gave the commodore much trouble and disquietude, for they were above double the number of his own people, and some of them, when they were brought on board the Centurion, and had observed how slenderly she was manned, and the large proportion which the striplings bore to the rest, could not help expressing themselves with great indignation to be thus beaten by a handful of boys. The method which was taken to hinder them from rising was by placing all but the officers and the wounded in the hold, where, to give them as much air as possible, two hatchways were left open; but then (to avoid any danger that might happen whilst the Centurion's people should be employed upon deck) there was a square partition of thick planks, made in the shape of a funnel, which enclosed each hatchway on the lower deck, and reached to that directly over it on the upper deck. These funnels served to communicate the air to the hold better than could have been done without them, and, at the same time, added greatly to the security of the ship, for they being seven or eight feet high, it would have been extremely difficult for the Spaniards to have clambered up; and still to augment that difficulty, four swivel guns, loaded with musquet-bullets, were planted at the mouth of each funnel, and a centinel with a lighted match was posted there ready to fire into the hold amongst them, in case of any disturbance. Their officers, who amounted to seventeen or eighteen, were all lodged in the first lieutenant's cabin, under a guard of six men; and the general, as he was wounded, lay in the commodore's cabin with a centinel always with him; every prisoner, too, was sufficiently apprised that any violence or disturbance would be punished with instant death. And, that the Centurion's people might be at all times prepared, if, notwithstanding these regulations, any tumult should arise, the small arms were constantly kept loaded in a proper place, whilst all the men went armed with cutlasses and pistols; and no officer ever pulled off his cloaths when he slept, or, when he lay down, omitted to have his arms always ready by him.

These measures were obviously necessary, considering the hazards to which the commodore and his people would have been exposed had they been less careful. Indeed, the sufferings of the poor prisoners, though impossible to be alleviated, were much to be commiserated; for the weather was extremely hot, the stench of the hold loathsome beyond all conception, and their allowance of water but just sufficient to keep them alive, it not being practicable to spare them more than at the rate of a pint a day for each, the crew themselves having only an allowance of a pint and a half. All this considered, it was wonderful that not a man of them died during their long confinement, except three of the wounded, who expired the same night they were taken, though it must be confessed that the greatest part of them were strangely metamorphosed by the heat of the hold; for when they were first brought on board, they were sightly robust fellows, but when, after above a month's imprisonment, they were discharged in the river Canton, they were reduced to mere skeletons, and their air and looks corresponded much more to the conception formed of ghosts and spectres than to the figure and appearance of real men.

Thus employed in securing the treasure and the prisoners, the commodore, as hath been said, stood for the river of Canton, and on the 30th of June, at six in the evening, got sight of Cape Delangano, which then bore west ten leagues distant. The next day he made the Bashee Islands, and the wind being so far to the northward that it was difficult to weather them, it was resolved to stand through between Grafton and Monmouth Islands, where the passage seemed to be clear, though in getting thro' the sea had a very dangerous aspect, for it ripled and foamed with all the appearances of being full of breakers, which was still more terrible as it was then night. But the ships got thro' very safe, the prize keeping ahead; and it was found that the agitation of the sea which had alarmed them, had been occasioned only by a strong tide. I must here observe that tho' the Bashee Islands are usually reckoned to be no more than five, yet there are many more lying about them to the westward, which, seeing the channels amongst them are not at all known, makes it adviseable for ships rather to pass to the northward or southward than thro' them; as indeed the commodore proposed to have gone to the northward between them and Formosa, had it been possible for him to have weathered them. From hence the Centurion steering the proper course for the river of Canton, she, on the 8th of July, discovered the island of Supata, the wester-most of the Lema Islands, being the double-peaked rock in the islands of Lema, formerly referred to. This island of Supata they made to be a hundred and thirty-nine leagues distant from Grafton's Island, and to bear from it north 82° 37' west. And on the 11th, having taken on board two Chinese pilots, one for the Centurion, and the other for the prize, they came to an anchor off the city of Macao.

By this time the particulars of the cargoe of the galeon were well ascertained, and it was found that she had on board 1,313,843 pieces of eight, and 35,682 oz. of virgin silver, besides some cochineal and a few other commodities, which, however, were but of small account in comparison of the specie. And this being the commodore's last prize, it hence appears that all the treasure taken by the Centurion was not much short of £400,000 independent of the ships and merchandize, which she either burnt or destroyed, and which, by the most reasonable estimation, could not amount to so little as £600,000 more: so that the whole damage done the enemy by our squadron did doubtless exceed a million sterling. To which, if there be added the great expence of the court of Spain, in fitting out Pizarro, and in paying the additional charges in America, incurred on our account, together with the loss of their men-of-war, the total of all these articles will be a most exorbitant sum, and is the strongest conviction of the utility of this expedition, which, with all its numerous disadvantages, did yet prove so extremely prejudicial to the enemy. I shall only add that there was taken on board the galeon several draughts and journals, from some of which many of the particulars recited in the tenth chapter of the second book are collected. Among the rest there was found a chart of all the ocean between the Philippines and the coast of Mexico, which was what was made use of by the galeon in her own navigation. With this digression I shall end this chapter, and leave the Centurion and her prize at anchor off Macao, preparing to enter the river of Canton.

CHAPTER IX

TRANSACTIONS IN THE RIVER OF CANTON

The commodore having taken pilots on board, proceeded with his prize for the river of Canton, and on the 14th of July cast anchor short of the Bocca Tigris, which is a narrow passage forming the mouth of that river. This entrance he proposed to stand through the next day, and to run up as far as Tiger Island, which is a very safe road, secured from all winds. But whilst the Centurion and her prize were thus at anchor, a boat with an officer was sent off from the mandarine commanding the forts at Bocca Tigris to examine what the ships were and whence they came. Mr. Anson informed the officer that his own ship was a man-of-war belonging to the King of Great Britain, and that the other in company with him was a prize he had taken, that he was going into Canton river to shelter himself against the hurricanes which were then approaching, and that as soon as the monsoon shifted he should set sail for England. The officer then desired an account of what men, guns, and ammunition were on board, a list of all which he said was to be sent to the government of Canton. But when these articles were repeated to him, particularly upon his being told that there were in the Centurion four hundred firelocks, and between three and four hundred barrels of powder, he shrugged up his shoulders and seemed to be terrified with the bare recital, saying that no ships ever came into Canton river armed in that manner; adding that he durst not set down the whole of this force, lest it should too much alarm the regency. After he had finished his enquiries, and was preparing to depart, he desired to leave two custom-house officers behind him, on which the commodore told him that though as a man-of-war he was prohibited from trading, and had nothing to do with customs or duties of any kind, yet for the satisfaction of the Chinese, he would permit two of their people to be left on board, who might themselves be witnesses how punctually he should comply with his instructions. The officer seemed amazed when Mr. Anson mentioned being exempted from all duties, and answered that the emperor's duty must be paid by every ship that came into his ports: and it is supposed that on this occasion private directions were given by him to the Chinese pilot not to carry the commodore through the Bocca Tigris, which makes it necessary more particularly to describe that entrance.

The Bocca Tigris is a narrow passage, little more than musquet-shot over, formed by two points of land, on each of which there is a fort, that on the starboard side being a battery on the water's edge, with eighteen embrasures, but where there were no more than twelve iron cannon mounted, seeming to be four or six-pounders; the fort on the larboard side is a large castle, resembling those old buildings which here in England we often find distinguished by that name; it is situated on a high rock, and did not appear to be furnished with more than eight or ten cannon, none of which were supposed to exceed six-pounders. These are the defences which secure the river of Canton, and which the Chinese (extremely defective in all military skill) have imagined were sufficient to prevent an enemy from forcing his way through.

But it is obvious from the description of these forts that they could have given no obstruction to Mr. Anson's passage, even if they had been well supplied with gunners and stores; and therefore, though the pilot, after the Chinese officer had been on board, refused at first to take charge of the ship till he had leave from the forts, yet as it was necessary to get through without any delay, for fear of the bad weather which was hourly expected, the commodore weighed on the 15th, and ordered the pilot to carry him by the forts, threatening him that if the ship ran aground he would instantly hang him up at the yard-arm. The pilot, awed by these threats, carried the ship through safely, the forts not attempting to dispute the passage. Indeed the poor pilot did not escape the resentment of his countrymen, for when he came on shore he was seized and sent to prison, and was rigorously disciplined with the bamboo. However, he found means to get at Mr. Anson afterwards, to desire of him some recompence for the chastisement he had undergone, and of which he then carried very significant marks about him; Mr. Anson, therefore, in commiseration of his sufferings, gave him such a sum of money as would at any time have enticed a Chinese to have undergone a dozen bastinadings.

Nor was the pilot the only person that suffered on this occasion; for the commodore soon after seeing some royal junks pass by him from Bocca Tigris towards Canton, he learnt, on enquiry, that the mandarine commanding the forts was a prisoner on board them; that he was already turned out, and was now carrying to Canton, where it was expected he would be severely punished for having permitted the ships to pass. Upon the commodore's urging the unreasonableness of this procedure, from the inability of the forts to have done otherwise, and explaining to the Chinese the great superiority his ships would have had over the forts, by the number and size of their guns, the Chinese seemed to acquiesce in his reasoning, and allowed that their forts could not have stopped him; but they still asserted that the mandarine would infallibly suffer for not having done what all his judges were convinced was impossible. To such indefensible absurdities are those obliged to submit who think themselves concerned to support their authority when the necessary force is wanting. But to return.

On the 16th of July the commodore sent his second lieutenant to Canton with a letter for the viceroy, informing him of the reason of the Centurion's putting into that port, and that the commodore himself soon proposed to repair to Canton to pay a visit to his excellency. The lieutenant was very civilly received, and was promised that an answer should be sent to the commodore the next day. In the meantime Mr. Anson gave leave to several of the officers of the galeon to go to Canton, they engaging their parole to return in two days. When these prisoners got to Canton, the regency sent for them and examined them, enquiring particularly by what means they came into Mr. Anson's power. It luckily happened that on this occasion the prisoners were honest enough to declare that as the kings of Great Britain and of Spain were at war they had proposed to themselves the taking of the Centurion, and had bore down upon her with that view, but that the event had been contrary to their hopes. And being questioned as to their usage on board, they frankly acknowledged that they had been treated by the commodore much better than they believed they should have treated him, had he fallen into their hands. This confession from an enemy had great weight with the Chinese, who till then, tho' they had revered the commodore's military force, had yet suspected his morals, and had considered him rather as a lawless free-booter than as one commissioned by the state for the revenge of public injuries. But they now changed their opinions, and regarded him as a more important person; to which perhaps the vast treasure of his prize might not a little contribute; the acquisition of wealth being a matter greatly adapted to the esteem and reverence of the Chinese nation.

In this examination of the Spanish prisoners, though the Chinese had no reason in the main to doubt of the account which was given them, yet there were two circumstances which appeared to them so singular as to deserve a more ample explanation; one of them was the great disproportion of men between the Centurion and the galeon, the other was the humanity with which the people of the galeon were treated after they were taken. The mandarines therefore asked the Spaniards how they came to be overpowered by so inferior a force? and how it happened, since the two nations were at war, that they were not put to death when they fell into the hands of the English? To the first of these enquiries the Spaniards answered that though they had more men than the Centurion, yet she being intended solely for war, had a great superiority in the size of her guns, and in many other articles, over the galeon, which was a vessel fitted out principally for traffic: and as to the second question, they told the Chinese that amongst the nations of Europe it was not customary to put to death those who submitted, though they readily owned that the commodore, from the natural bias of his temper, had treated both them and their countrymen, who had formerly been in his power, with very unusual courtesy, much beyond what they could have expected or than was required by the customs established between nations at war with each other. These replies fully satisfied the Chinese, and at the same time wrought very powerfully in the commodore's favour.

On the 20th of July, in the morning, three mandarines, with a great number of boats and a vast retinue, came on board the Centurion and delivered to the commodore the Viceroy of Canton's order for a daily supply of provisions, and for pilots to carry the ships up the river as far as the second bar; and at the same time they delivered him a message from the viceroy in answer to the letter sent to Canton. The substance of the message was that the viceroy desired to be excused from receiving the commodore's visit during the then excessive hot weather, because the assembling the mandarines and soldiers necessary to that ceremony would prove extremely inconvenient and fatiguing; but that in September when the weather would be more temperate he should be glad to see both the commodore himself and the English captain of the other ship that was with him. As Mr. Anson knew that an express had been dispatched to the court at Pekin with an account of the Centurion and her prize being arrived in the river of Canton, he had no doubt but the principal motive for putting off this visit was that the regency at Canton might gain time to receive the emperor's instructions about their behaviour on this unusual affair.

When the mandarines had delivered their message they began to talk to the commodore about the duties to be paid by his ships, but he immediately told them that he would never submit to any demand of that kind; that as he neither brought any merchandize thither, nor intended to carry any away, he could not be reasonably deemed within the meaning of the emperor's orders, which were doubtless calculated for trading vessels only, adding that no duties were ever demanded of men-of-war by nations accustomed to their reception, and that his master's orders expressly forbade him from paying any acknowledgment for his ships anchoring in any port whatever.

The mandarines being thus cut short on the subject of the duty, they said they had another matter to mention, which was the only remaining one they had in charge; this was a request to the commodore that he would release the prisoners he had taken on board the galeon; for that the Viceroy of Canton apprehended the emperor, his master, might be displeased if he should be informed that persons, who were his allies and carried on a great commerce with his subjects, were under confinement in his dominions. Mr. Anson himself was extremely desirous to get rid of the Spaniards, having on his first arrival sent about an hundred of them to Macao, and those who remained, which were near four hundred more, were, on many accounts, a great incumbrance to him. However, to inhance the favour, he at first raised some difficulties; but permitting himself to be prevailed on, he at last told the mandarines that to show his readiness to oblige the viceroy he would release the prisoners, whenever they, the Chinese, would order boats to fetch them off. This matter being thus adjusted, the mandarines departed; and on the 28th of July, two Chinese junks were sent from Canton to take on board the prisoners and to carry them to Macao. And the commodore, agreeable to his promise, dismissed them all, and directed his purser to allow them eight days' provision for their subsistence during their sailing down the river: since, before they were dispatched, the Centurion was arrived at her moorings, above the second bar, where she and her prize proposed to continue till the monsoon shifted.

Though the ships, in consequence of the viceroy's permit, found no difficulty in purchasing provisions for their daily consumption, yet it was impossible that the commodore could proceed to England without laying in a large quantity both of provisions and naval stores for his use during the voyage. The procuring this supply was attended with much perplexity; for there were people at Canton who had undertaken to furnish him with biscuit and whatever else he wanted; and his linguist, towards the middle of September, had assured him from day to day that all was ready and would be sent on board him immediately. But a fortnight being elapsed, and nothing brought, the commodore sent to Canton to enquire more particularly into the reasons of this disappointment: and he had soon the vexation to be informed that the whole was an illusion; that no order had been procured from the viceroy to furnish him with his sea stores, as had been pretended; that there was no biscuit baked, nor any one of the articles in readiness, which had been promised him; nor did it appear that the contractors had taken the least step to comply with their agreement. This was most disagreeable news, and made it suspected that the furnishing the Centurion for her return to Great Britain might prove a more troublesome matter than had been hitherto imagined; especially too as the month of September was nearly ended without Mr. Anson's having received any message from the Viceroy of Canton.

And here perhaps it might be expected that a satisfactory account should be given of the motives of the Chinese for this faithless procedure. However, as I have already, in a former chapter, made some kind of conjectures about a similar event, I shall not repeat them again in this place; but shall content myself with observing that after all it may perhaps be impossible for an European, ignorant of the customs and manners of that nation, to be fully apprized of the real incitements to this behaviour. Indeed, thus much may undoubtedly be asserted, that in artifice, falsehood, and an attachment to all kinds of lucre many of the Chinese are difficult to be paralleled by any other people. But then the particular application of these talents, and the manner in which they operate on every emergency, are often beyond the reach of a foreigner's penetration: so that though it may be surely concluded that the Chinese had some interest in thus amusing the commodore, yet it may not be easy to assign the individual views by which they were influenced. And that I may not be thought too severe in ascribing to this nation a fraudulent and selfish turn of temper, so contradictory to the character given of them in the legendary accounts of the Romish missionaries, I shall here mention an extraordinary transaction or two which I conceive will be some kind of confirmation of what I have advanced.

When the commodore lay first at Macao, one of his officers, who had been extremely ill, desired leave of him to go on shore every day on a neighbouring island, imagining that a walk upon the land would contribute greatly to the restoring of his health. The commodore would have dissuaded him from it, suspecting the tricks of the Chinese, but the officer continued importunate, in the end the boat was ordered to carry him thither. The first day he was put on shore he took his exercise and returned without receiving any molestation or even seeing any of the inhabitants; but the second day he was assaulted just after his arrival by a great number of Chinese who had been hoeing rice in the neighbourhood, and who beat him so violently with the handles of their hoes that they soon laid him on the ground incapable of resistance; after which they robbed him, taking from him his sword, the hilt of which was silver, his money, his watch, gold-headed cane, snuff-box, sleeve buttons, and hat, with several other trinkets. In the meantime, the boat's crew, who were at a little distance and had no arms of any kind with them, were incapable of giving him any relief; till at last one of them flew on the fellow who had the sword in his possession, and wresting it out of his hands, drew it, and with it was preparing to fall on the Chinese, some of whom he could not have failed of killing. But the officer, perceiving what he was about, immediately ordered him to desist, thinking it more prudent to submit to the present violence than to embroil his commander in an inextricable squabble with the Chinese Government by the death of their subjects: which calmness in this gentleman was the more meritorious as he was known to be a person of an uncommon spirit and of a somewhat hasty temper. By this means the Chinese speedily recovered the possession of the sword, when they perceived it was prohibited to be made use of against them, and carried off their whole booty unmolested. No sooner were they gone than a Chinese on horseback, very well dressed, and who had the air and appearance of a gentleman, came down to the seaside and, as far as could be understood by his signs, seemed to censure the conduct of his countrymen and to commiserate the officer, being wonderfully officious to assist in getting him on board the boat: but notwithstanding this behaviour, it was shrewdly suspected that he was an accomplice in the theft, and time fully made out the justice of those suspicions.

When the boat returned on board, and the officer reported what had passed to the commodore, he immediately complained of it to the mandarine who attended to see his ship supplied; but the mandarine coolly observed that the boat ought not to have gone on shore, promising, however, that if the thieves could be found they should be punished: though it appeared plain enough by his manner of answering that he would never give himself any trouble in searching them out. However, a considerable time afterwards, when some Chinese boats were selling provisions to the Centurion, the person who had wrested the sword from the Chinese came with eagerness to the commodore to assure him that one of the principal thieves was then in a provision boat alongside the ship; and the officer who had been robbed, viewing the fellow on this report, and well remembering his face, orders were immediately given to seize him; and he was accordingly secured on board the ship where strange discoveries were now made.

This thief on his being first apprehended expressed so much fright in his countenance that it was feared he would have died on the spot; the mandarine too who attended the ship had visibly no small share of concern on the occasion. Indeed he had reason enough to be alarmed, since it was soon apparent that he had been privy to the whole robbery; for the commodore declaring that he would not deliver up the thief, but would himself order him to be shot, the mandarine immediately put off the magisterial air, with which he had at first pretended to demand him, and begged his release in the most abject manner. But the commodore seeming to be inflexible, there came on board, in less than two hours' time, five or six of the neighbouring mandarines, who all joined in the same entreaty, and with a view of facilitating their suit, offered a large sum of money for the fellow's liberty. Whilst they were thus soliciting it was discovered that the mandarine, the most active amongst them, and who was thence presumed to be most interested in the event, was the very gentleman who rode up to the officer just after the robbery and who pretended to be so much displeased with the villainy of his countrymen. On further inquiry it was also found that he was the mandarine of the island, and that he had by the authority of his office ordered the peasants to commit that infamous action. This easily accounted for his extraordinary vigilance in the present conjuncture; since, as far as could be collected from the broken hints which were casually thrown out, it seemed that he and his brethren, who were every one privy to the transaction, were terrified with the fear of being called before the tribunal at Canton, where the first article of their punishment would be the stripping them of all they were worth; though their judges (however fond of inflicting a chastisement so lucrative to themselves) were perhaps of as tainted a complexion as the delinquents. Mr. Anson was not displeased to have caught the Chinese in this dilemma; he entertained himself for some time with their perplexity, rejecting their money with scorn, appearing inexorable to their prayers, and giving out that the thief should certainly be shot; but as he then foresaw that he should be forced to take shelter in their ports a second time, when the influence he might hereby acquire over the magistrates would be of great service to him, he at length permitted himself to be persuaded, and as a favour released his prisoner; though not till the mandarine had collected and returned all that had been stolen from the officer, even to the minutest trifle.

But notwithstanding this instance of the good intelligence between the magistrates and criminals, the strong addiction of the Chinese to lucre often prompts them to break through this awful confederacy, and puts them on defrauding the authority that protects them of its proper quota of the pillage. For not long after the above-mentioned transaction (the former mandarine, attendant on the ship, being in the meantime relieved by another) the commodore lost a top-mast from his stern, which, on the most diligent enquiry, could not be traced out. As it was not his own, but had been borrowed at Macao to heave down by, and was not to be replaced in that part of the world, he was extremely desirous to recover it, and published a considerable reward to any who would bring it him again. There were suspicions from the first of its being stolen, which made him conclude a reward was the likeliest method of getting it back. Hereupon, soon after, the mandarine informed him that some of his, the mandarine's, attendants had found the top-mast, desiring the commodore to send his boats to fetch it, which, being done, the mandarine's people received the promised reward. It seems the commodore had told the mandarine that he would make him a present besides on account of the care he had taken in directing it to be searched for; and accordingly Mr. Anson gave a sum of money to his linguist to be delivered to the mandarine; but the linguist knowing that the Chinese had been paid, and ignorant that a further present had been promised, kept the money himself. However, the mandarine fully confiding in Mr. Anson's word, and suspecting the linguist, he took occasion, one morning, to admire the size of the Centurion's masts, and thence on a pretended sudden recollection he made a digression to the top-mast which had been lost, and asked Mr. Anson if he had not got it again. Mr. Anson presently perceived the bent of this conversation, and enquired of him if he had not received the money from the linguist, and finding he had not, he offered to pay him upon the spot. But this the mandarine refused, having now somewhat more in view than the sum which had been detained. For the next day the linguist was seized, and was doubtless mulcted of whatever he had gotten in the commodore's service, which was supposed to be little less than two thousand dollars; being besides so severely bastinadoed that it was wonderful he escaped with his life. And when he was upbraided by the commodore (to whom he afterwards came a-begging) with his folly in risquing this severe chastisement, and the loss of all he was worth, for the lucre of fifty dollars, the present of which he defrauded the mandarine, he had no other excuse to make than the strong bias of his nation to dishonesty, replying in his broken jargon, "Chinese man very great rogue truly, but have fashion, no can help."

It were endless to recount all the artifices, extortions, and frauds which were practised on the commodore and his people by this interested race. The method of buying provisions in China being by weight, the tricks the Chinese made use of to augment the weight of what they sold to the Centurion were almost incredible. One time a large quantity of fouls and ducks being bought for the ship's store, the greatest part of them presently died. This spread a general alarm on board, it being apprehended that they had been killed by poison; but on examination it appeared that it was only owing to their being crammed with stones and gravel to increase their weight, the quantity thus forced into most of the ducks being found to amount to ten ounces in each. The hogs too, which were bought ready killed of the Chinese butchers, had water injected into them for the same purpose; so that a carcass hung up all night that the water might drain from it, had lost above a stone of its weight. And when, to avoid this cheat, the hogs were bought alive, it was discovered that the Chinese gave them salt to increase their thirst, and having thus excited them to drink great quantities of water, they then took measures to prevent them from discharging it again by urine, and sold the tortured animal in this inflated state. When the commodore first put to sea from Macao, they practised an artifice of another kind; for as the Chinese never scruple eating any food that dies of itself, they contrived by some secret practices that great part of his live sea-store should die in a short time after it was put on board, hoping to make a second profit of the dead carcasses which they expected would be thrown overboard; and two-thirds of the hogs dying before the Centurion was out of sight of land, many of the Chinese boats followed her only to pick up the carrion. These instances may serve as a specimen of the manners of this celebrated nation, which is often recommended to the rest of the world as a pattern of all kinds of laudable qualities. But to return.

The commodore, towards the end of September, having found out (as has been said) that those who had contracted to supply him with sea provisions and stores had deceived him, and that the viceroy had not invited him to an interview according to his promise, he saw it would be impossible for him to surmount the difficulties he was under without going to Canton and visiting the viceroy. And therefore, on the 27th of September, he sent a message to the mandarine who attended the Centurion, to inform him that he, the commodore, intended, on the 1st of October, to proceed in his boat to Canton: adding that the day after he got there he should notify his arrival to the viceroy, and should desire him to fix a time for his audience. This message being delivered to the mandarine, he returned no other answer than that he would acquaint the viceroy with the commodore's intentions. In the meantime all things were prepared for this expedition: and the boat's crew which Mr. Anson proposed to take with him were cloathed in an uniform dress, resembling that of the watermen on the Thames; they were in number eighteen and a coxswain; they had scarlet jackets and blue silk waistcoats, the whole trimmed with silver buttons, besides silver badges on their jackets and caps. As it was apprehended, and even asserted, that the payment of the customary duties for the Centurion and her prize would be demanded by the regency of Canton, and would be insisted on previous to their granting a permission to victual the ship for her future voyage, the commodore, who was resolved never to establish so dishonourable a precedent, took all possible precaution to prevent the Chinese from facilitating the success of their unseasonable pretensions by having him in their power at Canton. And therefore the better to secure his ship and the great treasure on board her against their projects, he appointed his first lieutenant, Mr. Brett, to be captain of the Centurion under him, giving him proper instructions for his conduct; directing him particularly, if he, the commodore, should be detained at Canton on account of the duties in dispute, to take out the men from the Centurion's prize and to destroy her, and then to proceed down the river through the Bocca Tigris with the Centurion alone, and to remain without that entrance till he received further orders from Mr. Anson.

These necessary steps being taken, which were not unknown to the Chinese, it should seem as if their deliberations were in some sort perplexed thereby. It is reasonable to imagine that they were in general very desirous of getting the duties to be paid them; not perhaps solely in consideration of the amount of those dues, but to keep up their reputation for address and subtlety, and to avoid the imputation of receding from claims on which they had already so frequently insisted. However, as they now foresaw that they had no other method of succeeding than by violence, and that even against this the commodore was prepared, they were at last disposed, I conceive, to let the affair drop rather than entangle themselves in an hostile measure which they found would only expose them to the risque of having the whole navigation of their port destroyed without any certain prospect of gaining their favourite point.

But though there is reason to conclude that these were their thoughts at that time, yet they could not depart at once from the evasive conduct to which they had hitherto adhered. Since when the commodore, on the morning of the 1st of October, was preparing to set out for Canton, his linguist came to him from the mandarine who attended the ship, to tell him that a letter had been received from the Viceroy of Canton, desiring the commodore to put off his going thither for two or three days. The reality of this message was not then questioned; but in the afternoon of the same day, another linguist came on board, who with much seeming fright told Mr. Anson that the viceroy had expected him up that day; that the council was assembled, and the troops had been under arms to receive him; and that the viceroy was highly offended at the disappointment, and had sent the commodore's linguist to prison, chained, supposing that the whole had been owing to the linguist's negligence. This plausible tale gave the commodore great concern, and made him apprehend that there was some treachery designed him which he could not yet fathom. And though it afterwards appeared that the whole was a fiction, not one article of it having the least foundation, yet for reasons best known to themselves this falshood was so well supported by the artifices of the Chinese merchants at Canton, that three days afterwards the commodore received a letter signed by all the supercargoes of the English ships then at that place, expressing their great uneasiness about what had happened, and intimating their fears that some insult would be offered to his boat if he came thither before the viceroy was fully satisfied of the mistake. To this letter Mr. Anson replied that he did not believe there had been a mistake; but was persuaded it was a forgery of the Chinese to prevent his visiting the viceroy; that therefore he would certainly come up to Canton on the 13th of October, confident that the Chinese would not dare to offer him any insult, as well knowing he should want neither power nor inclination to make them a proper return.

On the 13th of October, the commodore continuing firm to his resolution, all the supercargoes of the English, Danish, and Swedish ships came on board the Centurion, to accompany him to Canton, for which place he set out in his barge the same day, attended by his own boats, and by those of the trading ships, which on this occasion sent their boats to augment his retinue. As he passed by Wampo, where the European vessels lay, he was saluted by all of them but the French, and in the evening he arrived safely at Canton. His reception in that city, and the most material transactions from henceforward, till the expedition was brought to a period by the return of the Centurion to Great Britain, shall be the subject of the ensuing chapter.

CHAPTER X

PROCEEDINGS AT THE CITY OF CANTON, AND THE RETURN OF
THE "CENTURION" TO ENGLAND

When the commodore arrived at Canton, he was visited by the principal Chinese merchants, who affected to appear very much pleased that he had met with no obstruction in getting thither, and who thence pretended to conclude that the viceroy was satisfied about the former mistake, the reality of which they still insisted on. In the conversation which passed upon this occasion, they took care to insinuate that as soon as the viceroy should be informed that Mr. Anson was at Canton, which they promised should be done the next morning, they were persuaded a time would be immediately appointed for the visit, which was the principal business that had brought the commodore to that city.

The next day the merchants returned to Mr. Anson and told him that the viceroy was then so fully employed in preparing his dispatches for Pekin that there was no getting admittance to him at present, but that they had engaged one of the officers of his court to give them information as soon as he should be at leisure, when they proposed to notify Mr. Anson's arrival and to endeavour to fix the audience. The commodore was already too well acquainted with their artifices not to perceive that this was a falshood, and had he consulted only his own judgment, he would have applied directly to the viceroy by other hands. But the Chinese merchants had so far prepossessed the supercargoes of our ships with chimerical fears that they, the supercargoes, were extremely apprehensive of being embroiled with the government, and of suffering in their interest, if those measures were taken which appeared to Mr. Anson at that time to be the most prudential: and therefore, lest the malice and double dealing of the Chinese might have given rise to some sinister incident, which would be afterwards laid at his door, he resolved to continue passive as long as it should appear that he lost no time by thus suspending his own opinion. In pursuance of this resolution, he proposed to the English that he would engage not to take any immediate step himself for getting admittance to the viceroy, provided the Chinese, who contracted to furnish his provisions, would let him see that his bread was baked, his meat salted, and his storee prepared with the utmost dispatch. But if by the time when all was in readiness to be shipped off, which it was supposed would be in about forty days, the merchants should not have procured the government's permission to send it on board, then the commodore was determined to apply to the viceroy himself. These were the terms Mr. Anson thought proper to offer to quiet the uneasiness of the supercargoes; and, notwithstanding the apparent equity of the conditions, many difficulties and objections were urged; nor would the Chinese agree to the proposal till the commodore had consented to pay for every article he bespoke before it was put in hand. However, at last, the contract being past, it was some satisfaction to the commodore to be certain that his preparations were now going on; and being himself on the spot, he took care to hasten them as much as possible.

During this interval, in which the stores and provisions were getting ready, the merchants continually entertained Mr. Anson with accounts of their various endeavours to procure a licence from the viceroy and their frequent disappointments. This was now a matter of amusement to the commodore, as he was fully satisfied there was not one word of truth in anything they said. But when all was compleated, and wanted only to be shipped, which was about the 24th of November, at which time, too, the N.E. monsoon was set in, he then resolved to demand an audience of the viceroy, as he was persuaded that, without this ceremony, the grant of a permission to take his stores on board would meet with great difficulty. On the 24th of November, therefore, Mr. Anson sent one of his officers to the mandarine who commanded the guard of the principal gate of the city of Canton with a letter directed to the viceroy. When this letter was delivered to the mandarine, he received the officer who brought it very civilly, and took down the contents of it in Chinese, and promised that the viceroy should be immediately acquainted with it; but told the officer it was not necessary he should wait for an answer, because a message would be sent to the commodore himself.

When Mr. Anson first determined to write this letter, he had been under great difficulties about a proper interpreter, as he was well aware that none of the Chinese usually employed as linguists could be relied on, but he at last prevailed with Mr. Flint, an English gentleman belonging to the factory, who spoke Chinese perfectly well, to accompany his officer. This person, who upon that occasion and many others was of singular service to the commodore, had been left at Canton, when a youth, by the late Captain Rigby. The leaving him there to learn the Chinese language was a step taken by that captain merely from his own persuasion of the considerable advantages which the East India Company might one day receive from an English interpreter, and tho' the utility of this measure has greatly exceeded all that was expected from it, yet I have not heard that it has been to this hour imitated: but we imprudently choose, except in this single instance, to carry on the vast transactions of the port of Canton either by the ridiculous jargon of broken English, which some few of the Chinese have learnt, or by the suspected interpretation of the linguists of other nations.

Two days after the sending the above-mentioned letter, a fire broke out in the suburbs of Canton. On the first alarm Mr. Anson went thither with his officers and his boat's crew to aid the Chinese. When he came there, he found that it had begun in a sailor's shed, and that by the slightness of the buildings, and the aukwardness of the Chinese, it was getting head apace. However, he perceived that by pulling down some of the adjacent sheds it might easily be extinguished; and particularly observing that it was then running along a wooden cornice, which blazed fiercely, and would immediately communicate the flame to a great distance, he ordered his people to begin with tearing away the cornice. This was presently attempted, and would have been soon executed, but in the meantime he was told that as there was no mandarine there, who alone has a power to direct on these occasions, the Chinese would make him, the commodore, answerable for whatever should be pulled down by his command. Hereupon Mr. Anson and his attendants desisted, and he sent them to the English factory, to assist in securing the company's treasure and effects, as it was easy to foresee that no distance was a protection against the rage of such a fire, where so little was done to put a stop to it; since all the while the Chinese contented themselves with viewing it, and now and then holding one of their idols near it, which they seemed to expect should check its progress. Indeed, at last, a mandarine came out of the city, attended by four or five hundred firemen. These made some feeble efforts to pull down the neighbouring houses, but by that time the fire had greatly extended itself and was got amongst the merchants' warehouses, and the Chinese firemen, wanting both skill and spirit, were incapable of checking its violence, so that its fury increased upon them, and it was feared the whole city would be destroyed. In this general confusion the viceroy himself came thither, and the commodore was sent to, and was intreated to afford his assistance, being told that he might take any measures he should think most prudent in the present emergency. Upon this message he went thither a second time, carrying with him about forty of his people, who, in the sight of the whole city, exerted themselves after so extraordinary a manner as in that country was altogether without example. For, behaving with the agility and boldness peculiar to sailors, they were rather animated than deterred by the flames and falling buildings amongst which they wrought; whence it was not uncommon to see the most forward of them tumble to the ground on the roofs and amidst the ruins of houses which their own efforts brought down under them. By their resolution and activity the fire was soon extinguished, to the amazement of the Chinese: and it fortunately happened too, that the buildings being all on one floor, and the materials slight, the seamen, notwithstanding their daring behaviour, escaped with no other injuries than some considerable bruises.

The fire, though at last thus luckily extinguished, did great mischief during the time it continued, for it consumed a hundred shops and eleven streets full of warehouses, so that the damage amounted to an immense sum; and one of the Chinese merchants, well known to the English, whose name was Succoy, was supposed, for his own share, to have lost near two hundred thousand pounds sterling. It raged indeed with unusual violence, for in many of the warehouses there were large quantities of camphire, which greatly added to its fury, and produced a column of exceeding white flame, which blazed up into the air to such a prodigious height that it was distinctly seen on board the Centurion, though she was at least thirty miles distant.

Whilst the commodore and his people were labouring at the fire, and the terror of its becoming general still possessed the whole city, several of the most considerable Chinese merchants came to Mr. Anson to desire that he would let each of them have one of his soldiers (for such they stiled his boat's crew, from the uniformity of their dress) to guard their warehouses and dwelling-houses, which, from the known dishonesty of the populace, they feared would be pillaged in the tumult. Mr. Anson granted them this request, and all the men that he thus furnished behaved much to the satisfaction of the merchants, who afterwards highly applauded their great diligence and fidelity.

By this means, the resolution of the English in mastering the fire, and their trusty and prudent conduct where they were employed as safeguards, was the general subject of conversation amongst the Chinese. And the next morning many of the principal inhabitants waited on the commodore to thank him for his assistance, frankly owning to him that he had preserved their city from being totally consumed, as they could never have extinguished the fire of themselves. Soon after, too, a message came to the commodore from the viceroy, appointing the 30th of November for his audience, which sudden resolution of the viceroy, in a matter that had been so long agitated in vain, was also owing to the signal services performed by Mr. Anson and his people at the fire; of which the viceroy himself had been in some measure an eye-witness.

The fixing this business of the audience was on every account a circumstance with which Mr. Anson was much pleased, since he was satisfied the Chinese Government would not have determined this point without having agreed among themselves to give up their pretensions to the duties they claimed, and to grant him all he could reasonably ask. For, as they well knew the commodore's sentiments, it would have been a piece of imprudence, not consistent with their refined cunning, to have admitted him to an audience only to have contested with him. Being therefore himself perfectly easy about the result of this visit, he made the necessary preparations against the day, and engaged Mr. Flint, whom I have mentioned before, to act as interpreter in the conference: and Mr. Flint, in this affair as in all others, acquitted himself much to the commodore's satisfaction, repeating with great boldness, and doubtless with exactness, whatever was given him in charge, a part which no Chinese linguist would have performed with any tolerable fidelity.

At ten o'clock in the morning, on the day appointed, a mandarine came to the commodore to let him know that the viceroy was prepared, and expected him, on which the commodore and his retinue immediately set out. As soon as he entered the outer gate of the city, he found a guard of two hundred soldiers ready to receive him; these attended him to the great parade before the emperor's palace, where the viceroy then resided. In this parade, a body of troops, to the number of ten thousand, were drawn up under arms, who made a very fine appearance, they being all of them new cloathed for this ceremony. Mr. Anson, with his retinue, having passed through the middle of them, he was then conducted to the great hall of audience, where he found the viceroy seated under a rich canopy in the emperor's chair of state, with all his council of mandarines attending. Here there was a vacant seat prepared for the commodore, in which he was placed on his arrival. He was ranked the third in order from the viceroy, there being above him only the two chiefs of the law and of the treasury, who in the Chinese Government have precedence of all military officers. When the commodore was seated, he addressed himself to the viceroy by his interpreter, and began with reciting the various methods he had formerly taken to get an audience; adding that he imputed the delays he had met with to the insincerity of those he had employed, and that he had therefore no other means left than to send, as he had done, his own officer with a letter to the gate. On the mention of this the viceroy interrupted the interpreter, and bid him assure Mr. Anson that the first knowledge they had of his being at Canton was from that letter. Mr. Anson then proceeded, and told him that the subjects of the King of Great Britain trading to China had complained to him, the commodore, of the vexatious impositions both of the merchants and inferior custom-house officers, to which they were frequently necessitated to submit, by reason of the difficulty of getting access to the mandarines, who alone could grant them redress. That it was his, Mr. Anson's, duty, as an officer of the King of Great Britain, to lay before the viceroy these grievances of the British subjects, which he hoped the viceroy would take into consideration, and would give orders that hereafter there should be no just reason for complaint. Here Mr. Anson paused, and waited some time in expectation of an answer, but nothing being said, he asked his interpreter if he was certain the viceroy understood what he had urged; the interpreter told him he was certain it was understood, but he believed no reply would be made to it. Mr. Anson then represented to the viceroy the case of the ship Haslingfield, which, having been dismasted on the coast of China, had arrived in the river of Canton but a few days before. The people on board this vessel had been great sufferers by the fire; the captain in particular had all his goods burnt, and had lost besides, in the confusion, a chest of treasure of four thousand five hundred tahel, which was supposed to be stolen by the Chinese boatmen. Mr. Anson therefore desired that the captain might have the assistance of the government, as it was apprehended the money could never be recovered without the interposition of the mandarines. And to this request the viceroy made answer that, in settling the emperor's customs for that ship, some abatement should be made in consideration of her losses.

And now the commodore having dispatched the business with which the officers of the East India Company had entrusted him, he entered on his own affairs, acquainting the viceroy that the proper season was already set in for returning to Europe, and that he wanted only a licence to ship off his provisions and stores, which were all ready; and that as soon as this should be granted him, and he should have gotten his necessaries on board, he intended to leave the river of Canton and to make the best of his way for England. The viceroy replied to this that the licence should be immediately issued, and that everything should be ordered on board the following day. And finding that Mr. Anson had nothing farther to insist on, the viceroy continued the conversation for some time, acknowledging in very civil terms how much the Chinese were obliged to him for his signal services at the fire, and owning that he had saved the city from being destroyed: then observing that the Centurion had been a good while on their coast, he closed his discourse by wishing the commodore a prosperous voyage to Europe, after which the commodore, thanking him for his civility and assistance, took his leave.

As soon as the commodore was out of the hall of audience, he was much pressed to go into a neighbouring apartment, where there was an entertainment provided; but finding, on enquiry, that the viceroy himself was not to be present, he declined the invitation and departed, attended in the same manner as at his arrival, only on his leaving the city he was saluted with three guns, which are as many as in that country are ever fired on any ceremony. Thus the commodore, to his great joy, at last finished this troublesome affair, which, for the preceding four months, had given him much disquietude. Indeed he was highly pleased with procuring a licence for the shipping off his stores and provisions, as thereby he was enabled to return to Great Britain with the first of the monsoons, and to prevent all intelligence of his being expected: but this, though a very important point, was not the circumstance which gave him the greatest satisfaction, for he was more particularly attentive to the authentic precedent established on this occasion, by which his Majesty's ships of war are for the future exempted from all demands of duty in any of the ports of China.

In pursuance of the promises of the viceroy, the provisions were begun to be sent on board the day succeeding the audience, and four days after, the commodore embarked at Canton for the Centurion. And now all the preparations for putting to sea were pursued with so much vigilance, and were so soon compleated, that the 7th of December the Centurion and her prize unmoored and stood down the river, passing through the Bocca Tigris on the 10th. On this occasion I must observe that the Chinese had taken care to man the two forts on each side of that passage with as many men as they could well contain, the greatest part of them armed with pikes and matchlock musquets. These garrisons affected to shew themselves as much as possible to the ships, and were doubtless intended to induce Mr. Anson to think more reverently than he had hitherto done of the Chinese military power. For this purpose they were equipped with extraordinary parade, having a great number of colours exposed to view; and on the castle in particular there was laid considerable heaps of large stones, and a soldier of unusual size, dressed in very sightly armour, stalked about on the parapet with a battle-ax in his hand, endeavouring to put on as important and martial an air as possible, though some of the observers on board the Centurion shrewdly suspected, from the appearance of his armour, that instead of steel it was composed only of a particular kind of glittering paper.

The Centurion and her prize being now without the river of Canton, and consequently upon the point of leaving the Chinese jurisdiction, I beg leave, before I quit all mention of the Chinese affairs, to subjoin a few remarks on the disposition and genius of that celebrated people. And though it may be supposed that observations made at Canton only, a place situated in a corner of the empire, are very imperfect materials on which to found any general conclusions, yet as those who have had opportunities of examining the inner parts of the country have been evidently influenced by very ridiculous prepossessions, and as the transactions of Mr. Anson with the regency of Canton were of an uncommon nature, in which many circumstances occurred different perhaps from any which have happened before, I hope the following reflections, many of them drawn from these incidents, will not be altogether unacceptable to the reader.

That the Chinese are a very ingenious and industrious people is sufficiently evinced from the great number of curious manufactures which are established amongst them, and which are eagerly sought for by the most distant nations; but though skill in the handicraft art seems to be the most valuable qualification of this people, yet their talents therein are but of a second-rate kind, for they are much outdone by the Japanese in those manufactures which are common to both countries, and they are in numerous instances incapable of rivalling the mechanic dexterity of the Europeans. Indeed, their principal excellency seems to be imitation, and they accordingly labour under that poverty of genius which constantly attends all servile imitators. This is most conspicuous in works which require great truth and accuracy, as in clocks, watches, fire-arms, etc., for in all these, though they can copy the different parts, and can form some resemblance of the whole, yet they never could arrive at such a justness in their fabric as was necessary to produce the desired effect. If we pass from those employed in manufactures to artists of a superior class, as painters, statuaries, etc., in these matters they seem to be still more defective; their painters, though very numerous and in great esteem, rarely succeeding in the drawing or colouring of human figures, or in the grouping of large compositions; and though in flowers and birds their performances are much more admired, yet even in these some part of the merit is rather to be imputed to the native brightness and excellency of the colours than to the skill of the painter, since it is very unusual to see the light and shade justly and naturally handled, or to find that ease and grace in the drawing which are to be met with in the works of European artists. In short, there is a stiffness and minuteness in most of the Chinese productions which are extremely displeasing: and it may perhaps be truly asserted that these defects in their arts are entirely owing to the peculiar turn of the people, amongst whom nothing great or spirited is to be met with.

If we next examine the Chinese literature (taking our accounts from the writers who have endeavoured to represent it in the most favourable light), we shall find that on this head their obstinacy and absurdity are most wonderful; since though, for many ages, they have been surrounded by nations to whom the use of letters was familiar, yet they, the Chinese alone, have hitherto neglected to avail themselves of that almost divine invention, and have continued to adhere to the rude and inartificial method of representing words by arbitrary mark—a method which necessarily renders the number of their characters too great for human memory to manage, makes writing to be an art that requires prodigious application, and in which no man can be otherwise than partially skilled; whilst all reading and understanding of what is written is attended with infinite obscurity and confusion, as the connexion between these marks and the words they represent cannot be retained in books, but must be delivered down from age to age by oral tradition—and how uncertain this must prove in such a complicated subject is sufficiently obvious to those who have attended to the variation which all verbal relations undergo when they are transmitted thro' three or four hands only. Hence it is easy to conclude that the history and inventions of past ages recorded by these perplexed symbols must frequently prove unintelligible, and consequently the learning and boasted antiquity of the nation must, in numerous instances, be extremely problematical.

However, we are told by many of the missionaries that tho' the skill of the Chinese in science is confessedly much inferior to that of the Europeans, yet the morality and justice taught and practised by them are most exemplary: so that from the description given by some of these good fathers, one should be induced to believe that the whole empire was a well-governed affectionate family, where the only contests were who should exert the most humanity and social virtue. But our preceding relation of the behaviour of the magistrates, merchants, and tradesmen at Canton sufficiently refutes these Jesuitical fictions. Beside, as to their theories of morality, if we may judge from the specimens exhibited in the works of the missionaries, we shall find them frequently employed in recommending ridiculous attachment to certain frivolous points, instead of discussing the proper criterion of human actions, and regulating the general conduct of mankind to one another on reasonable and equitable principles. Indeed, the only pretension of the Chinese to a more refined morality than their neighbours is founded not on their integrity or beneficence, but solely on the affected evenness of their demeanor, and their constant attention to suppress all symptoms of passion and violence. But it must be considered that hypocrisy and fraud are often not less mischievous to the general interests of mankind than impetuosity and vehemence of temper: since these, though usually liable to the imputation of imprudence, do not exclude sincerity, benevolence, resolution, nor many other laudable qualities. And perhaps, if this matter was examined to the bottom, it would appear that the calm and patient turn of the Chinese, on which they so much value themselves, and which distinguishes the nation from all others, is in reality the source of the most exceptionable part of their character; for it has been often observed by those who have attended to the nature of mankind, that it is difficult to curb the more robust and violent passions without augmenting, at the same time, the force of the selfish ones. So that the timidity, dissimulation, and dishonesty of the Chinese may, in some sort, be owing to the composure and external decency so universally prevailing in that empire.

Thus much for the general disposition of the people: but I cannot dismiss this subject without adding a few words about the Chinese Government, that too having been the subject of boundless panegyric. And on this head I must observe that the favourable accounts often given of their prudent regulations for the administration of their domestic affairs are sufficiently confuted by their transactions with Mr. Anson, as we have seen that their magistrates are corrupt, their people thievish, and their tribunals venal and abounding with artifice. Nor is the constitution of the empire, or the general orders of the state, less liable to exception, since that form of government which does not in the first place provide for the security of the public against the enterprizes of foreign powers is certainly a most defective institution: and yet this populous, this rich and extensive country, so pompously celebrated for its refined wisdom and policy, was conquered about an age since by a handful of Tartars; and even now, through the cowardice of the inhabitants, and the want of proper military regulations, it continues exposed not only to the attempts of any potent state, but to the ravages of every petty invader. I have already observed, on occasion of the commodore's disputes with the Chinese, that the Centurion alone was an overmatch for all the naval power of that empire. This perhaps may appear an extraordinary position, but it is unquestionable, for I have examined two of the vessels made use of by the Chinese. The first of these is a junk of about a hundred and twenty tuns burthen, and was what the Centurion hove down by; these are most used in the great rivers, tho' they sometimes serve for small coasting voyages. The other junk is about two hundred and eighty tuns burthen, and is of the same form with those in which they trade to Cochinchina, Manila, Batavia, and Japan, tho' some of their trading vessels are of a much larger size; its head is perfectly flat, and when the vessel is deep laden, the second or third plank of this flat surface is oft-times under water. The masts, sails, and rigging of these vessels are ruder than the built, for their masts are made of trees, no otherwise fashioned than by barking them and lopping off their branches. Each mast has only two shrouds of twisted rattan, which are often both shifted to the weather side; and the halyard, when the yard is up, serves instead of a third shroud. The sails are of mat, strengthened every three feet by an horizontal rib of bamboo; they run upon the mast with hoops, and when they are lowered down they fold upon the deck. These traders carry no cannon, and it appears from this whole description that they are utterly incapable of resisting any European armed vessel. Nor is the state provided with ships of considerable force, or of a better fabric, to protect their merchantmen: for at Canton, where doubtless their principal naval power is stationed, we saw no more than four men-of-war junks, of about three hundred tuns burthen, being of the make already described, and mounted only with eight or ten guns, the largest of which did not exceed a four-pounder. This may suffice to give an idea of the defenceless state of the Chinese Empire. But it is time to return to the commodore, whom I left with his two ships without the Bocca Tigris, and who, on the 12th of December, anchored before the town of Macao.

Whilst the ships lay there, the merchants of Macao finished their purchase of the galeon, for which they refused to give more than 6000 dollars: this was greatly short of her value, but the impatience of the commodore to get to sea, to which the merchants were no strangers, prompted them to insist on these unequal terms. Mr. Anson had learnt enough from the English at Canton to conjecture that the war with Spain was still continued, and that probably the French might engage in the assistance of Spain before he could arrive in Great Britain; and therefore, knowing that no intelligence could come to Europe of the prize he had taken and the treasure he had on board till the return of the merchantmen from Canton, he was resolved to make all possible expedition in getting back, that he might be himself the first messenger of his own good fortune, and might thereby prevent the enemy from forming any projects to intercept him. For these reasons, he, to avoid all delay, accepted of the sum offered for the galeon, and she being delivered to the merchants the 15th of December 1743, the Centurion the same day got under sail on her return to England. On the 3d of January she came to anchor at Prince's Island in the Streights of Sunda, and continued there wooding and watering till the 8th, when she weighed and stood for the Cape of Good Hope, where, on the 11th of March, she anchored in Table Bay.

The Cape of Good Hope is situated in a temperate climate, where the excesses of heat and cold are rarely known, and the Dutch inhabitants, who are numerous, and who here retain their native industry, have stocked it with prodigious plenty of all sorts of fruits and provision, most of which, either from the equality of the seasons, or the peculiarity of the soil, are more delicious in their kind than can be met with elsewhere: so that by these, and by the excellent water which abounds there, this settlement is the best provided of any in the known world for the refreshment of seamen after long voyages. Here the commodore continued till the beginning of April, highly delighted with the place, which, by its extraordinary accommodations, the healthiness of its air, and the picturesque appearance of the country, the whole enlivened too by the addition of a civilized colony, was not disgraced on a comparison with the vallies of Juan Fernandes and lawns of Tinian. During his stay he entered about forty new men, and having, by the 3d of April 1744, compleated his water and provision, he, on that day, weighed and put to sea. The 19th of April they saw the island of St. Helena, which, however, they did not touch at, but stood on their way, and arriving in soundings about the beginning of June, they, on the 10th of that month, spoke with an English ship bound for Philadelphia, from whom they received the first intelligence of a French war. By the 12th of June they got sight of the Lizard, and the 15th, in the evening, to their infinite joy, they came safe to an anchor at Spithead. But that the signal perils which had so often threatned them in the preceding part of the enterprize might pursue them to the very last, Mr. Anson learnt on his arrival that there was a French fleet of considerable force cruising in the chops of the Channel, which, from the account of their position, he found the Centurion had ran through, and had been all the time concealed by a fog. Thus was this expedition finished, when it had lasted three years and nine months, after having, by its event, strongly evinced this important truth, that though prudence, intrepidity, and perseverance united are not exempted from the blows of adverse fortune, yet in a long series of transactions they usually rise superior to its power, and in the end rarely fail of proving successful.

INDEX

Acapulco, 3, 13, 177, 178, 197, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 216-238, 239, 242, 247, 249, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 283, 310, 339, 341, 349

Aguigan Island, 289

Alexander VI., Pope, 216

Alvoredo Island, 45, 48

Anatacan, Island of, 278, 279

Andes, or Cordilleras Mountains, The, 32, 71, 89, 103, 105, 170, 173, 198

Anna, 41, 43, 57, 62, 66, 74, 78, 83, 123-159, 163

Araucos (Chilian Indian tribe), 92, 260, 261

Argyle, 13, 14

Arranzazu, 161

Asia, 27 et seq., 147

Atlantic Ocean, 40, 77

Azores, 216

Bahia del todos Santos, 44, 170

Balchen, Admiral, 15, 18, 19, 26

Baldivia, 73, 85, 93, 104, 139, 140, 257, 258, 262, 265

Bamboo, Island of, 321

Barbadoes, 42

Barragan, Bay of, 30

Barranca, 166

Bashee Islands, 317, 341, 351

Batan, Island of, 229

Batavia, 327, 339, 378

Birriborongo, 229

Blanco, Cape, 64, 91, 94, 198

Bland, Colonel, 12, 15

Boccadero, The, 222

Bocca Tigris, 353, 354, 355, 365, 379

Bon Port, Bay of, 45, 49

Botel Tobago Xima Island, 317, 341, 342

Boyne, Battle of the, 101

Brazen Head, 24

Brazil, 29, 31, 38, 40, 44, 45, 48, 50, 52, 53, 55, 86, 91, 96, 141, 169, 170, 199, 257, 333

Brett, Lieut, (afterwards Capt.) Piercy, 9, 113, 166, 174, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 189, 243, 244, 255, 300, 312, 365

Buenavista. See Tinian

Buenos Ayres, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 43, 52, 54, 59, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 126, 147

Butusan, 229

Byron, Hon. Mr., 145, 146

Cabite, 219, 222, 229

Cabouce, Island of, 321

Cadiz, 175, 220, 221

California, 195, 196, 219, 222, 223, 225, 226

Callao, 126, 155, 156, 157, 159, 161, 163-167, 175, 177, 178, 188, 218, 219, 259, 263, 264

Campbell (midshipman), 145, 146, 147

Canal Bueno, 200

Canton, 310, 323, 324, 326, 328, 329, 330, 334, 335, 339, 353, 380

Canton, River, 62, 256, 321, 323, 324, 351, 353-380

Cape of Good Hope, 216, 218, 379

Carthagena, 196

Catanduanas, 229

Cathcart, Lord, 18, 19, 26

Cavendish, Sir Thomas, 219

Centurion, H.M.S., 12, 19, 22, 25, 44, 47, 59, 64, 65, 66, 73, 74, 100, 101, 102, 123, 125, 128, 129, 130, 151, 153, 155, 158, 160, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 182, 185, 187, 189, 190, 191, 198, 199, 231, 232, 250, 251, 252, 255, 268, 271, 274, 275, 281, 288, 294-315, 324, 325, 326, 327, 330, 334, 335, 336, 339, 341, 344-352, 355, 356, 361, 367, 371, 373, 374, 375, 378, 379

Channel English, 18

Charles II., 67, 92, 94

Cheap, Lieut. (afterwards Capt.) David, 25, 66, 73, 138-147

Chequetan Harbour, 205, 236, 237, 238, 239-256

Cheripe, 206

Chili, 5, 13, 32, 33, 73, 105, 113, 149, 152, 155, 163, 258, 259, 261, 265

Chiloe Island, 104, 138, 140, 145, 146

China, 13, 59, 62, 225, 235, 248, 252, 256, 295, 316, 323, 324, 325, 332, 335, 340, 372, 374

Chonos, Islands of, 134

Clipperton, Capt., 179

Cochinchina, 378

Cocos Island, 197, 208, 209

Colan, 177

Columbus, Christopher, 52

Concord, 76

Cordilleras, The. See Andes

Corientes, Cape, 195, 208, 227

Coromandel, 221

Cowley, Capt., 91

Cozens (midshipman), 141, 142

Cracherode, Lieut.-Col. Mordaunt, 22, 73, 333

Cumberland Bay, 112

Dampier, William, 237, 242, 285, 341

Delango, Cape, 351

Dennis, Lieut., 167

Desire, Port, 67

Downs, The, 94

Dragon, H.M.S., 20, 23

Drake, Sir Francis, 94

Duchess of Bristol, 257

Duke of Bristol, 257

East India Company, 43, 323, 327, 369, 373

East Indies, 13, 55, 173, 216, 314

Elizabeth, 9

Elliot (surgeon), 145, 146

Esperanza, 27 et seq.

Espiritu Santo, Cape, 225, 228, 251, 339, 341, 344, 349

Ethiopic Ocean, 40, 44

Falkland Islands, 91, 92

Fonchiale, 24

Formosa, Island of, 309, 317, 318, 341

France, 266

Frezier, AmedÉe Francis, 7, 48, 50, 76, 84, 91, 94, 95, 264

Frio, Cape, 44

Gallicia, 38

Gallo, Island of, 198

Gasparico, Island of, 228

Gerard, Mr. (master of the Anna), 149, 151

Gloucester, H.M.S., 14, 22, 25, 43, 64, 65, 74, 75, 81, 82, 83, 123-131, 151, 158, 159, 163, 164, 174, 175, 193, 194, 195, 198, 199, 205, 206, 207, 209, 210, 231, 232, 238, 250, 252, 255, 256, 268, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 281, 298, 301

Gordon, Lieut., 301

Grafton's Island, 351

Gravesend, 94

Guaiaquil, 167, 187, 264

Guam, Island of, 228, 274, 275, 279, 280, 281, 284, 286, 290, 295, 305, 308, 309, 310, 311, 314

Guipuscoa, 27 et seq.

Halley, Dr. Edmund, 4, 40, 91, 94-97

Hamilton, Lieut., 143, 145

Haslingfield, 373

Hermiona, 27 et seq.

History of Plants, 285

Holland, 52

Horn, Cape, 12, 15, 18, 21, 28, 29, 33, 47, 58, 61, 66, 74, 78, 102, 121, 149, 157, 159, 170, 208-215, 257, 268, 270

Hudson's Bay, 169

Hughes, Lieut., 160, 188, 237, 251

Incarnation, 76

Inchin, Island of, 132

Industry, 41

Jalapay, Port of, 347

Janson, 335

Japan, 315

Java Head, 12

Jesu Nazareno, 206, 207

Jesuits, The, 220, 221, 226, 314

Juan Fernandes, Island of, 62, 73, 90, 92, 98-131, 138, 141, 144, 148-176, 195, 196, 205, 257, 268, 282, 380

Kepple, Hon. Mr. 181

Kidd, Capt. Dandy, 22, 25, 64

Ladrones. See Marian Islands

Lantoon, Island of, 322

Lantoon, Peak of, 322

Lark, H.M.S., 22

Leger, Lewis, 249, 250

Legg, Capt. the Hon. Edward, 22, 73, 173, 333

Lema, Islands of, 321, 351

Le Maire, Straits, 29, 61, 193-208, 85, 87, 88, 94, 95, 98, 100, 104, 107

Lezo, Don Blaso de, 5

Lima, 30, 32, 115, 165, 170, 175, 178, 188, 191, 259, 264

Lion, H.M.S., 9

Lisbon, 54, 56, 249

Lizard, The, 380

Lobos de la Mar Island, 174

Lobos de Tierra Island, 174

Loo, 24

Luconia, Island of, 12, 218, 219

Macao, 62, 208, 294, 295, 309, 317, 318, 319, 321, 323-338, 339, 340, 341, 349, 358, 359, 362, 363, 379

Madera, 24, 25, 40, 44, 156

Magellan, Ferdinand, 217, 218, 310

Magellan, Straits of, 66, 67, 70, 71, 75, 83, 92, 94, 95, 96, 99, 141, 142

Maldonado, Bay of, 28

Manila, 3, 4, 12, 13, 214, 216-229, 336, 339, 340, 342, 349, 378

Manta, 205

Marian Islands, 218, 276, 277, 310, 313, 315, 321, 322, 337

Mariato, Point, 199

Masa Fuero, Island of, 128, 148

Masaqura Island, 48

Mentero, General Don Jeronimo de, 348

Mexico, 4, 5, 175, 176, 188, 197, 205, 206, 214, 219, 220, 221, 225, 226, 227, 234, 236, 249, 250, 251, 255, 256, 257, 268, 271, 340, 352

Mindinuetta, Don Joseph, 30 et seq.

Mitchel, Capt. Matthew, 22, 73, 123, 128, 159, 165, 193, 195, 199, 272, 273, 274, 275, 333

Monmouth Island, 351

Montegorda, 76

Monte Vedio, 30, 33, 34

Morena, Marcos, 174

Morro Solar, 264

Morro Veijo, 166

Murray, Capt. Hon. George, 66, 73

Narborough, Sir John, 61, 65, 67, 71, 92, 93-97

Nasca, 163, 164

Newcastle, Duke of (Secretary of State), 14

Newfoundland, 120

New Guinea, 314

Noir, Cape, 84, 138, 216-229, 333

Norris, Sir John, 14

Norris, Capt. Richard, 24

Nostra Senora del Socoro Island, 61, 73, 102, 139

Nuestra Senora del Carmin, 174, 189, 209, 231, 232, 237, 238, 248, 250

Nuestra Senora del Monte Carmelo, 155, 158-166, 189, 196, 209, 210, 231, 232, 237, 238, 248, 250

Nuestra Signora de Cabadonga, 348

Orellana (Indian chief), 5, 34 et seq., 71

Pacific Ocean, 3, 77, 83, 88, 92, 99, 102, 218, 227, 251, 252, 266, 267, 314, 339

Paita, 159, 163, 165, 175-200, 205, 230, 236, 265, 269

Panama, 5, 13, 21, 163, 164, 174, 175, 177, 178, 184, 196, 197, 206, 259, 263

Panama, Bay of, 198, 203, 263

Paragua, 33

Parrot Island, 48

Patagonia, 63, 66, 67, 70, 71, 91, 92

Patinho, Don Joseph, 221

Paulists, The, 56, 57

Paxaros, Island of, 277

Paz, Brigadier Don Jose Sylva de, 43, 51, 52, 58, 86

Pearl, H.M.S., 13, 21, 23, 62, 77, 84, 130, 132-147, 156, 333, 334

Pedro Blanco, 318, 320, 321

Pekin, 357, 367

Pepys's Island, 91

Peru, 5, 13, 96, 152, 156, 157, 162, 163, 164, 173, 174, 196, 218, 220, 221, 252, 257, 259, 264

Petaplan, Bay of, 240, 243, 244, 265

Petaplan, Hill of, 240, 244, 245

Philadelphia, 380

Philippine Islands, 12, 218, 222, 310, 339, 352

Pisco, 163

Piura, 175, 177, 183

Pizarro, Don Joseph, 5, 26, 27 et seq., 59, 74, 126, 154, 156, 157, 260, 265, 352

Plata, Island of, 198

Plate, River, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 44, 51, 52, 63, 66, 86, 87, 96, 157

Plymouth, 20

Porto Bello, 196

Portsmouth, 9, 15, 18, 187, 195, 312

Portugal, 51, 52, 56, 323

Prince Frederick, H.M.S., 19

Prince's Island, 379

Quibo, Island of, 197, 198, 199, 201-207, 208, 238, 240

Quicara, Island of, 199, 240

Quito, 155

Ram Head, The, 23

Realeijo, 177

Rigby, Capt., 369

Rio de Patas, 31, 53

Rio Grande, 53, 57, 58, 143

Rio Janeiro, 32, 33, 44, 87, 333

Rogers, Woodes, 91

Rota Island, 228, 286, 300, 310

St. Albans, H.M.S., 20, 22

St. Antonio, Island of, 46, 48

St. Bartholomew, Cape, 76, 95, 228

St. Catherine's, 18, 28, 32, 40, 44, 45, 160-192, 73, 87, 95, 156, 170, 171, 333

St. Estevan, 27 et seq.

St. Gallen Island, 166

St. Helena Island, 380

St. Helens, 11, 14, 18, 19, 24, 43, 44, 151, 266

St. Jago, 25, 32, 40, 146, 147, 259

St. James, Cape, 76

St. Juan, Fort, 48

St. Julian, Bay of, 66

St. Julian, Port, 61, 65, 67, 71, 74, 96, 97, 156, 334

St. Lucas, Cape, 225, 226, 227, 228

St. Petersburgh, 170, 171

St. Thomas, Cape, 44

St. Vincent, Cape, 76

Salt, Lieut., 64

Samal, Island of, 228, 251, 339

San Ignatio de Agana, 310

Santa Fee, 5

Santa Teresa de Jesus, 167, 181, 190, 198

Saumarez, Lieut., 66, 155, 163, 168, 292, 349

Saunders, Capt. Charles, 66, 110, 129, 160, 163, 164, 165, 168, 333

Saypan Island, 279, 310

Sebaco, Island of, 200

Seguateneio, 213, 236, 237, 240

Selkirk, Alexander, 116, 117, 120

Serigan, Island of, 276

Severn, H.M.S., 13, 22, 64, 65, 84, 130, 132-147, 173, 333

Sevil, 217

Shelvocke, Capt., 199

Solidad, 188, 189, 198

Sonsonnate, 177

Sonsonnate, Bay of, 176

South Sea Castle, H.M.S., 23

South Sea Company, 21

Spain, 7, 11, 12, 28, 29, 70, 93, 117, 146, 147, 218, 219, 265, 266, 345, 352, 355, 379

Spanish squadron, 27 et seq.

Spice Islands, 217, 218

Spithead, 14, 24, 380

Staten-land, 30, 76, 78, 87, 92

Sunda, Straits of, 379

Supata Island, 351

Table Bay, 379

Terra del Fuego, 75, 76, 83, 84, 85, 92, 94, 95, 98, 102

Three Brothers, The, 76

Tiger Island, 353

Tinian, Island of, 279, 282, 286, 289, 294-302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307-322, 380

Torbay, 20

Tres Marias Island, 208

Tryal, H.M.S., 13, 25, 43, 58, 59, 62, 65, 66, 73, 74, 77, 82, 109, 110, 121, 122, 123, 128, 130, 148 151, 153, 158, 159-165, 174, 178, 182, 188, 210, 231, 232, 237, 238, 248, 250, 281, 298

Typa, Harbour of, 324, 336

Urrunaga, Bartolome, 167

Valparaiso, 146, 154, 155, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165

Vanderas, Valley of, 225

Vele Rete, 317

Vera Cruz, 249

Verd, Cape de, Islands, 25, 26, 40

Vernon, Admiral, 195

Vesputio, Americus, 52

Virgin Mary, Cape, 74, 94

Wager, H.M.S., 13, 17, 18, 23, 43, 78, 82, 132-147, 153

Wager, Sir Charles, 12, 13, 14, 15, 65, 94

Wampo, 366

West Indies, 27, 173, 174, 196, 220

Williams, John, 175

Winchester, H.M.S., 20, 23

Wood, Capt., 96, 97

Wood's Mount, 65, 74

Zamorra, Don Manuel, 155

THE TEMPLE PRESS, PRINTERS, LETCHWORTH