In pursuance of the promises of the Viceroy, the provisions were begun to be sent on board the day after the audience, and four days after the Commodore embarked at Canton for the Centurion, and on the 7th of December the Centurion and her prize unmoored and stood down the river, passing through the Bocca Tigris on the 10th. And 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 muskets. These garrisons affected to show 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 much parade, having a great number of colours exposed to view, and on the castle in particular there were laid considerable heaps of large stones, and a soldier of unusual size, dressed in very sightly armour, stalked about on the parapet with a battleaxe 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 Commodore, on the 12th of December, anchored before the town of Macao. Whilst the ships lay here the merchants of Macao finished their agreement for the galleon, for which they had offered 6,000 dollars; this was much 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 so unequal a bargain. Mr. Anson had learnt enough from the English at Canton to conjecture that the war betwixt Great Britain and 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 get 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 the sum offered for the galleon, 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. And on the 3rd of January she came to an anchor at Prince's Island, in the Straits 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.
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, all enlivened by the addition of a civilised colony, was not disgraced in an imaginary comparison with the valleys of Juan Fernandez and the lawns of Tinian. During his stay he entered about forty new men, and having by the 3rd of April, 1744, completed his water and provision, he on that day weighed and put to sea. The 19th of the same month they saw the island of St. Helena, which, however, they did not touch at, but stood on their way; and on the 10th of June, being then in soundings, they spoke with an English ship from Amsterdam bound for Philadelphia, whence they received the first intelligence of a French war. The 12th 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 threatened them in the preceding part of the enterprise might pursue them to the very last, Mr. Anson learned on his arrival that there was a French fleet of considerable force cruising in the chops of the Channel, which, by the account of their position, he found the Centurion had run 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.
GLOSSARY
Anchors:
Bower anchors (the best bower and the small bower). The anchors carried at the bows of a vessel.
The sheet anchor (= shoot anchor). An anchor to be shot out or lowered in case of a great danger, carried abaft the forerigging; formerly the largest anchor.
Bag-wig. See Wig.
Barge. See Boats.
Bilging. To bilge = to be stove in, or suffer serious injury in the bilge, which is the bottom part of a ship's hull.