416 L O R D A N S O N ' S V O Y A G E
chants were no ftrangers, prompted them to infill on thefe unequal
terms. Mr. Anfon had learnt enough from the Englijh at Canton
to conjedture, that the war with Spain was ftill continued; and
that probably the French might engage in the affiftance of Spain,
before he could arrive in Great-Britain; and therefore, knowing
that no intelligence could come to Europe o f the prize he had
taken, and the treafure he had on board, till the return of the
merchantmen from Canton, he was refolVed to make all poffible
expedition in getting back, that he might be himfelf the firft
meflenger of his own good fortune, and might thereby prevent the
enemy from forming any projedts to intercept him : For thefe
reafons, he, to avoid all delay, accepted of the fum offered for
the galeon; and Ihe being delivered to the merchants the 15th o f
December, 1743, the Centurion, the fame day, got under fail, on
her return to England. On the 3d of January, file came to an
anchor at Prince’s IJland in the ftreights o f Sunda, and continued
there" wooding and watering till the 8th; when Ihe weighed and
Hood for The-Cape o f Good Hope, where, on the n th of March,
Ihe anchored at Fable-bay '. »■
■ The Cape of Good Hope is fituated in a temperate climate, where
the excelfes of heat and cold are rarely known; and the Dutch inhabitants,
who are numerous, and who here retain their native in-
duftry,have flock’d it with prodigious plenty of all forts o f fruits and
provifions ; moft of which, either from the equality of the feafons,
or the peculiarity of the foil, are more delicious in their kind than
can be met with elfewhere: So that by thefe, and by the excellent
water which abounds there, this fettlement is the belt provided
of any in the known world, for the refrefhment of featnen after
long voyages- Here the Commodore continued till the beginning
of April, highly delighted with the place, which by its extraordinary
accommodations, the healthinefs of its air, and the pidturefque
appearance of the country, the whole enlivened too by the addition
of a civilized colony, was not difgraCed on a comparifon
with the vallies of Juan Fernandes, and the lawns of Tinian. During
R O U N D T H E W O R L D . 417
riiig his flay he entered about forty new men; and having, by the
3d of April, 1744, compleated his water and provifion, he, on that
day, weighed and put to fea. The 19th o f April they taw the
Ifland of Saint Helena, which however they did not touch at, but
flood on their way ; and, arriving in foundings about the beginning
of June, they, on the 10th of that mouth, fpoke with an
Englijh (hip bound for Philadelphia, from whom they received the
firft intelligence of a French war. By the 12th of June they got
fight of the L izard ; and the 15th, in the evening, to their infinite
joy, they came fafe to an anchor at Spithead. But, that the fignal
perils, which had fo often threatened them in the'preceding part
of the enterprize, might purfue them to the very laft, Mr. Anfon
learnt, on his arrival, that there was a French fleet of confiderable
force cruifing in the chops o f the Channel, which, from the account
of their pofition, he found the Centurion had run through,
and had been all the time concealed by a fog. Thus was this expedition
finifhed, when it had lafted three years and nine months;
after having, by its event, ftrongly evinced this important truth,
That though prudence, intrepidity, and perfeverance, united-, are
not exempted from the blows of adverfe fortune; yet, in a long
feries o f tranfaffions, they ufually rife fuperior to its power, and,
in the end, rarely fail of proving fuccefsful.
F I N I S .