Chapter 22

DELAY AND DISAPPOINTMENT--CHASING A HEATH FIRE--ACAPULCO--THE Manila GALLEON--FRESH HOPES.

On the 12th of December we stood from Quibo to the westward. We had little doubt of arriving soon upon our intended station,* as we expected, upon increasing our offing from Quibo, to fall in with the regular trade wind. But, to our extreme vexation, we were baffled for near a month, either with tempestuous weather from the western quarter, or with dead calms and heavy rains, attended with a sultry air. As our hopes were so long baffled, and our patience quite exhausted, we began at length to despair of succeeding in the great purpose we had in view, that of intercepting the Manila galleon; and this produced a general dejection amongst us, as we had at first considered this project as almost infallible, and had indulged ourselves in the most boundless hopes of the advantages we should thence receive. However, our despondency was at last somewhat alleviated by a favourable change of the wind; for on the 9th of January a gale for the first time sprang up from the north-east. As we advanced apace towards our station our hopes began to revive, for though the customary season of the arrival of the galleon at Acapulco was already elapsed, yet we were by this time unreasonable enough to flatter ourselves that some accidental delay might, for our advantage, lengthen out her passage beyond its usual limits. On the 26th of January, being then to the northward of Acapulco, we tacked and stood to the eastward, with a view of making the land.

(*Note. Off Cape Corrientes (20 degrees 20 minutes north). Anson hoped to intercept the Manila galleon here.)

A MORTIFYING DELUSION.

We expected by our reckonings to have fallen in with it on the 28th; but though the weather was perfectly clear, we had no sight of it at sunset, and therefore we continued on our course, not doubting but we should see it by the next morning. About ten at night we discovered a light on the larboard-bow, bearing from us north-north-east. The Trial's prize, too, which was about a mile ahead of us, made a signal at the same time for seeing a sail; and as we had none of us any doubt but what we saw was a ship's light, we were all extremely animated with a firm persuasion that it was the Manila galleon, which had been so long the object of our wishes. And what added to our alacrity was our expectation of meeting with two of them instead of one, for we took it for granted that the light in view was carried in the top of one ship for a direction to her consort. We chased the light, keeping all our hands at their respective quarters, under an expectation of engaging in the next half-hour, as we sometimes conceived the chase to be about a mile distant, and at other times to be within reach of our guns; and some on board us positively averred that besides the light they could plainly discern her sails. The Commodore himself was so fully persuaded that we should be soon alongside of her, that he sent for his first Lieutenant, who commanded between decks, and directed him to see all the great guns loaded with two round-shot for the first broadside, and after that with one round-shot and one grape, strictly charging him at the same time not to suffer a gun to be fired till he, the Commodore, should give orders, which he informed the Lieutenant would not be till we arrived within pistol-shot of the enemy. In this constant and eager attention we continued all night, always presuming that another quarter of an hour would bring us up with this Manila ship, whose wealth, with that of her supposed consort, we now estimated by round millions. But when the morning broke and daylight came on, we were most strangely and vexatiously disappointed by finding that the light which had occasioned all this bustle and expectancy was only a fire on the shore. And yet I believe there was no person on board who doubted of its being a ship's light, or of its being near at hand. It was, indeed, upon a very high mountain, and continued burning for several days afterwards. It was not a volcano, but, rather, as I suppose, stubble or heath set on fire for some purpose of agriculture.

At sun-rising, after this mortifying delusion, we found ourselves about nine leagues off the land. On this land we observed two remarkable hummocks, such as are usually called paps; these a Spanish pilot and two Indians, who were the only persons amongst us that pretended to have traded in this part of the world, affirmed to be over the harbour of Acapulco. Indeed, we very much doubted their knowledge of the coast, for we found these paps to be in the latitude of 17 degrees 56 minutes, whereas those over Acapulco are said to be in 17 degrees only, and we afterwards found our suspicions of their skill to be well grounded.

And now, being in the track of the Manila galleon, it was a great doubt with us (as it was near the end of January) whether she was or was not arrived. And as we now began to want a harbour to refresh our people, the uncertainty of our present situation gave us great uneasiness, and we were very solicitous to get some positive intelligence, which might either set us at liberty to consult our necessities, if the galleon was arrived, or might animate us to continue on our present cruise with cheerfulness if she was not. With this view the Commodore, after examining our prisoners very particularly, resolved to send a boat, under colour of the night, into the harbour of Acapulco to see if the Manila ship was there or not. To execute this project, the barge was despatched the 6th of February. She did not return to us again till the 11th, when the officers acquainted Mr. Anson, that, agreeable to our suspicion, there was nothing like a harbour in the place where the Spanish pilots had at first asserted Acapulco to lie; that, when they had satisfied themselves in this particular, they steered to the eastward in hopes of discovering it, and had coasted along shore thirty-two leagues; that in this whole range they met chiefly with sandy beaches of a great length, over which the sea broke with so much violence that it was impossible for a boat to land; that at the end of their run they could just discover two paps at a very great distance to the eastward, which from their appearance and their latitude they concluded to be those in the neighbourhood of Acapulco, but that, not having a sufficient quantity of fresh water and provision for their passage thither and back again, they were obliged to return to the Commodore to acquaint him with their disappointment. On this intelligence we all made sail to the eastward, in order to get into the neighbourhood of that port, the Commodore resolving to send the barge a second time upon the same enterprise when we were arrived within a moderate distance. And the next day, which was the 12th of February, we being by that time considerably advanced, the barge was again despatched, and particular instructions given to the officers to preserve themselves from being seen from the shore. On the 19th of February she returned, and we found that we were indeed disappointed in our expectation of intercepting the galleon before her arrival at Acapulco; but we learned other circumstances which still revived our hopes, and which, we then conceived, would more than balance the opportunity we had already lost. For though our negro prisoners* informed us that the galleon arrived at Acapulco on our 9th of January, which was about twenty days before we fell in with this coast, yet they at the same time told us that the galleon had delivered her cargo and was taking in water and provisions for her return, and that the Viceroy of Mexico had by proclamation fixed her departure from Acapulco to the 14th of March, New Style.

(*Note. Three negroes in a fishing canoe had been captured by the Centurion's barge off Acapulco harbour.)

This last news was most joyfully received by us, as we had no doubt but she must certainly fall into our hands, and as it was much more eligible to seize her on her return than it would have been to have taken her before her arrival, as the specie for which she had sold her cargo, and which she would now have on board, would be prodigiously more to be esteemed by us than the cargo itself, great part of which would have perished on our hands, and no part of it could have been disposed of by us at so advantageous a mart as Acapulco.

Thus we were a second time engaged in an eager expectation of meeting with this Manila ship, which, by the fame of its wealth, we had been taught to consider as the most desirable prize that was to be met with in any part of the globe.