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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage 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, anch.o.r.ed 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 a.s.sistance 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 anch.o.r.ed 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.

Boats:

Barge. The second boat of a man-of-war; a long narrow boat, generally with not less than ten oars, for the use of the chief officers.

Cutter. A boat belonging to a ship of war, shorter and in proportion broader than the barge or pinnace, fitted for rowing and sailing, and used for carrying light stores, pa.s.sengers, etc.

Longboat. The princ.i.p.al boat of the old man-of-war. Now replaced by steam launches.

Pinnace. A boat for the accommodation of the inferior officers of a man-of-war, resembling the barge.

Yawl. A small boat used for much the same purposes as the cutter.

Bow-chasers. See Chasers.

Bower. See Anchor.

Bring to. To bring a vessel's head up to the wind so that the wind blows from bow to stern.

Broad pennant. See Commodore.

Cacao. Chocolate nuts.

Cackle. To cover a cable spirally with old three-inch rope to protect it from chafing.

Callous (of a broken bone). The new bony tissue formed between and around the fractured ends of a broken bone in the process of reuniting.

Careening is the operation of heaving down a ship on one side, in order to expose the other side for cleaning.

Cartel. A written agreement between belligerents for an exchange of prisoners.

Caulk. To make a ship's seams watertight by plugging the crevices with oak.u.m (i.e. old untwisted rope).

Chasers. Bow-chasers were two long chase-guns placed forward in the bow ports to fire directly ahead. Stern-chasers were similar guns mounted astern.

Clean. A clean ship is one whose bottom is free from barnacles and weed that check the pace.

Clearing for action. To get ready for battle by clearing the decks from enc.u.mbrances and anything unnecessary or dangerous, such as wooden part.i.tions between cabins, etc.

Cochineal. A dye stuff consisting of female cochineal insects killed and dried by heat. They yield a brilliant scarlet dye.

Cohorn mortars. See Mortar.

The commerce. Used several times in the sense of "the traders."

Commodore. A naval officer ranking above a captain and below a rear-admiral. In the British Navy the rank is a temporary one, given to senior officers in command of detached squadrons. The broad pennant (chapter 4) is the flag that marks the presence of a commodore on board.

Courses. The sails below the topsails and next to the deck.

Cutter. See Boats.

Dollar. A corruption of the German "thaler," a name for a silver coin worth about four shillings. The name was extended in the form "dollar" to other coins of similar size, notably the old Spanish "piece of eight."

See Pieces of eight.

Doubloon. A former Spanish gold coin worth about eight dollars.

Eight. See Pieces of.

Embargo. A temporary order from Government to prevent the arrival or departure of ships.

Fetch (the wake of). To reach the track left by a ship.

File (of musketeers). Latin filum, French file = a row. The word is used to signify any line of men standing directly behind one another. In ordinary two-deep formations a file consists of two men, one in the front rank and one in the rear rank.

Fishing (a mast). To strengthen or mend a mast by fastening strips of wood or iron along a weak or broken place.

Foot-rope. A rope stretched under a yard arm for sailors to stand on while reefing or furling sails.

Fore-cap. The cap is a stout block joining the bottom of one mast to the top of another; as where the foretopmast joins the foremast.

Foremast, foretopmast, etc. See Mast.

Fore-reach. To gain upon or pa.s.s; to beat in sailing.

Foreyard. The lowest yard on the foremast of a square-rigged vessel.

Grapnel. A boat's anchor having more than two flukes. Come to grapnel, cf. Come to anchor.

Half-galleys. A galley is a low, flat-built sea-going vessel with one deck, propelled by sails and oars. A half-galley is a similar vessel, but much shorter.