A voyage round the world in the years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV

by Baron George Anson Anson

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.