The Commodore, towards the end of September, having found out (as has been said) that those who had contracted to supply him with sea provisions and stores had deceived him, and that the Viceroy had not sent to him according to his promise, he saw it would be impossible for him to surmount the embarrassment he was under without going himself to Canton, and visiting the Viceroy. And therefore, on the 27th of September, he sent a message to the mandarin who attended the Centurion to inform him that he, the Commodore, intended on the 1st of October to proceed in his boat to Canton, adding that the day after he got there he should notify his arrival to the Viceroy, and should desire him to fix a time for his audience; to which the mandarin returned no other answer than that he would acquaint the Viceroy with the Commodore's intentions. In the meantime all things were prepared for this expedition, and the boat's crew in particular which Mr. Anson proposed to take with him, were clothed in a uniform dress resembling that of the watermen on the Thames. They were in number eighteen and a coxswain. They had scarlet jackets and blue silk waistcoats, the whole trimmed with silver buttons, and with silver badges on their jackets and caps.
A WISE PRECAUTION.
As it was apprehended, and even asserted, that the payment of the customary duties for the Centurion and her prize would be demanded by the Regency of Canton, and would be insisted on previous to the granting a permission for victualling the ship for her future voyage, the Commodore, who was resolved never to establish so dishonourable a precedent, took all possible precautions to prevent the Chinese from facilitating the success of their unreasonable pretentions by having him in their power at Canton. And, therefore, for the security of his ship and the great treasure on board her, he appointed his first lieutenant, Mr. Brett, to be captain of the Centurion under him, giving him proper instructions for his conduct, directing him particularly, if he, the Commodore, should be detained at Canton on account of the duties in dispute, to take out the men from the Centurion's prize and to destroy her, and then to proceed down the river through the Bocca Tigris with the Centurion alone, and to remain without that entrance till he received further orders from Mr. Anson.
These necessary steps being taken, which were not unknown to the Chinese, it should seem as if their deliberations were in some sort embarrassed thereby. It is reasonable to imagine that they were in general very desirous of getting the duties to be paid them, not perhaps solely in consideration of the amount of those dues, but to keep up their reputation for address and subtlety, and to avoid the imputation of receding from claims on which they had already so frequently insisted. However, as they now foresaw that they had no other method of succeeding than by violence, and that even against this the Commodore was prepared, they were at last disposed, I conceive, to let the affair drop, rather than entangle themselves in a hostile measure which they found would only expose them to the risk of having the whole navigation of their port destroyed, without any certain prospect of gaining their favourite point thereby.
BARGAINING.
When the Commodore arrived at Canton he was visited by the principal Chinese merchants, who affected to appear very much pleased that he had met with no obstruction in getting thither. They added that, as soon as the Viceroy should be informed that Mr. Anson was at Canton, they were persuaded a day would be immediately appointed for the visit, which was the principal business that had brought the Commodore thither.
The next day the merchants returned to Mr. Anson, and told him that the Viceroy was then so fully employed in preparing his despatches for Pekin, that there was no getting admittance to him for some days; but that they had engaged one of the officers of his court to give them information as soon as he should be at leisure when they proposed to notify Mr. Anson's arrival, and to endeavour to fix the day of audience. The Commodore was by this time too well acquainted with their artifices not to perceive that this was a falsehood, and had he consulted only his own judgment he would have applied directly to the Viceroy by other hands. But the Chinese merchants had so far prepossessed the supercargoes of our ships with chimerical fears, that they were extremely apprehensive of being embroiled with the government and of suffering in their interest, if those measures were taken which appeared to Mr. Anson at that time to be the most prudential; and therefore, lest the malice and double-dealing of the Chinese might have given rise to some sinister incident which would be afterwards laid at his door, he resolved to continue passive as long as it should appear that he lost no time by thus suspending his own opinion. With this view he promised not to take any immediate step himself for getting admittance to the Viceroy, provided the Chinese with whom he contracted for provisions would let him see that his bread was baked, his meat salted, and his stores prepared with the utmost despatch. But if, by the time when all was in readiness to be shipped off (which it was supposed would be in about forty days), the merchants should not have procured the Viceroy's permission, then the Commodore proposed to apply for it himself. These were the terms Mr. Anson thought proper to offer to quiet the uneasiness of the supercargoes; and notwithstanding the apparent equity of the conditions, many difficulties and objections were urged, nor would the Chinese agree to them till the Commodore had consented to pay for every article he bespoke before it was put in hand. However, at last the contract being passed, it was some satisfaction to the Commodore to be certain that his preparations were now going on, and being himself on the spot, he took care to hasten them as much as possible.
During this interval, in which the stores and provisions were getting ready, the merchants continually entertained Mr. Anson with accounts of their various endeavours to get a licence from the Viceroy, and their frequent disappointments, which to him was now a matter of amusement, as he was fully satisfied there was not one word of truth in anything they said. But when all was completed, and wanted only to be shipped, which was about the 24th of November, at which time, too, the north-east monsoon was set in, he then resolved to apply himself to the Viceroy to demand an audience, as he was persuaded that without this ceremony the procuring a permission to send his stores on board would meet with great difficulty. On the 24th of November, therefore, Mr. Anson sent one of his officers to the mandarin who commanded the guard of the principal gate of the city of Canton with a letter directed to the Viceroy. When this letter was delivered to the mandarin, he received the officer who brought it very civilly, and took down the contents of it in Chinese, and promised that the Viceroy should be immediately acquainted with it, but told the officer it was not necessary for him to wait for an answer, because a message would be sent to the Commodore himself.
A FIRE AT CANTON.
Two days after the sending the above-mentioned letter a fire broke out in the suburbs of Canton. On the first alarm Mr. Anson went thither with his officers and his boat's crew to assist the Chinese. When he came there he found that it had begun in a sailor's shed, and that by the slightness of the buildings and the awkwardness of the Chinese it was getting head apace. But he perceived that by pulling down some of the adjacent sheds it might easily be extinguished; and particularly observing that it was running along a wooden cornice which would soon communicate it to a great distance, he ordered his people to begin with tearing away that cornice. This was presently attempted, and would have been soon executed, but in the meantime he was told that, as there was no mandarin there to direct what was to be done, the Chinese would make him (the Commodore) answerable for whatever should be pulled down by his orders. On this his people desisted, and he sent them to the English factory to assist in securing the Company's treasure and effects, as it was easy to foresee that no distance was a protection against the rage of such a fire, where so little was done to put a stop to it; for all this time the Chinese contented themselves with viewing it and now and then holding one of their idols near it, which they seemed to expect should check its progress. However, at last a mandarin came out of the city, attended by four or five hundred firemen. These made some feeble efforts to pull down the neighbouring houses, but by this time the fire had greatly extended itself, and was got amongst the merchants' warehouses, and the Chinese firemen, wanting both skill and spirit, were incapable of checking its violence, so that its fury increased upon them, and it was feared the whole city would be destroyed. In this general confusion the Viceroy himself came thither, and the Commodore was sent to and was entreated to afford his assistance, being told that he might take any measures he should think most prudent in the present emergency. And now he went thither a second time, carrying with him about forty of his people, who upon this occasion exerted themselves in such a manner as in that country was altogether without example. For they were rather animated than deterred by the flames and falling buildings amongst which they wrought, so that it was not uncommon to see the most forward of them tumble to the ground on the roofs and amidst the ruins of houses which their own efforts brought down with them. By their boldness and activity the fire was soon extinguished, to the amazement of the Chinese, and the building being all on one floor, and the materials slight, the seamen, notwithstanding their daring behaviour, happily escaped with no other injuries than some considerable bruises. The fire, though at last thus luckily extinguished, did great mischief during the time it continued, for it consumed an hundred shops and eleven streets full of warehouses, so that the damage amounted to an immense sum. It raged, indeed, with unusual violence, for in many of the warehouses there were large quantities of camphor, which greatly added to its fury, and produced a column of exceeding white flame, which shot up into the air to such a prodigious height that the flame itself was plainly seen on board the Centurion, though she was thirty miles distant.
Whilst the Commodore and his people were labouring at the fire, and the terror of its becoming general still possessed the whole city, several of the most considerable Chinese merchants came to Mr. Anson to desire that he would let each of them have one of his soldiers (for such they styled his boat's crew from the uniformity of their dress) to guard their warehouses and dwelling-houses, which, from the known dishonesty of the populace, they feared would be pillaged in the tumult. Mr. Anson granted them this request, and all the men that he thus furnished to the Chinese behaved greatly to the satisfaction of their employers, who afterwards highly applauded their great diligence and fidelity. By this means the resolution of the English at the fire, and their trustiness and punctuality elsewhere, was the subject of general conversation amongst the Chinese, and the next morning many of the principal inhabitants waited on the Commodore to thank him for his assistance, frankly owning to him that they could never have extinguished the fire of themselves, and that he had saved their city from being totally consumed. And soon after a message came to the Commodore from the Viceroy, appointing the 30th of November for his audience, which sudden resolution of the Viceroy, in a matter that had been so long agitated in vain, was also owing to the signal services performed by Mr. Anson and his people at the fire, of which the Viceroy himself had been in some measure an eye-witness. The fixing this business of the audience was, on all accounts, a circumstance which Mr. Anson was much pleased with, as he was satisfied that the Chinese Government would not have determined this point without having agreed among themselves to give up their pretensions to the duties they claimed, and to grant him all he could reasonably ask; for, as they well knew the Commodore's sentiments, it would have been a piece of imprudence not consistent with the refined cunning of the Chinese to have admitted him to an audience only to have contested with him.
THE VICEROY.
At ten o'clock in the morning, on the day appointed, a mandarin came to the Commodore to let him know that the Viceroy was ready to receive him, on which the Commodore and his retinue immediately set out. And as soon as he entered the outer gate of the city, he found a guard of two hundred soldiers drawn up ready to attend him; these conducted him to the great parade before the Emperor's palace, where the Viceroy then resided. In this parade a body of troops, to the number of ten thousand, were drawn up under arms, and made a very fine appearance, being all of them new clothed for this ceremony, and Mr. Anson and his retinue having passed through the middle of them, he was then conducted to the great hall of audience, where he found the Viceroy seated under a rich canopy in the Emperor's chair of state, with all his Council of Mandarins attending. Here there was a vacant seat prepared for the Commodore, in which he was placed on his arrival. He was ranked the third in order from the Viceroy, there being above him only the head of the law and of the treasury, who in the Chinese Government take place of all military officers. When the Commodore was seated he addressed himself to the Viceroy by his interpreter, and began with reciting the various methods he had formerly taken to get an audience, adding that he imputed the delays he had met with to the insincerity of those he had employed, and that he had therefore no other means left than to send, as he had done, his own officer with a letter to the gate. On the mention of this the Viceroy stopped the interpreter, and bid him assure Mr. Anson that the first knowledge they had of his being at Canton was from the letter. Mr. Anson then proceeded, acquainting the Viceroy that the proper season was now set in for returning to Europe, and that he waited only for a license to ship off his provisions and stores, which were all ready, and that, as soon as this should be granted to him, and he should have got his necessaries on board, he intended to leave the river of Canton and to make the best of his way to England. The Viceroy replied to this that the license should be immediately issued, and that everything should be ordered on board the following day. The Viceroy continued the conversation for some time, acknowledging in very civil terms how much the Chinese were obliged to him for his signal services at the fire, and owning that he had saved the city from being destroyed; and then, observing that the Centurion had been a good while on their coast, he closed his discourse by wishing the Commodore a good voyage to Europe. After which, the Commodore thanking him for his civility and assistance, took his leave.
Thus the Commodore, to his great joy, at last finished this troublesome affair, which for the preceding four months had given him great disquietude. Indeed, he was highly pleased with procuring a licence for the shipping his stores and provisions; for thereby he was enabled to return to Great Britain with the first of the monsoon, and to prevent all intelligence of his being expected. But this, though a very important point, was not the circumstance which gave him the greatest satisfaction, for he was more particularly attentive to the authentic precedent established on this occasion, by which His Majesty's ships of war are for the future exempted from all demands of duty in any of the ports of China.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
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.
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, passengers, etc.
Longboat. The principal 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 oakum (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 encumbrances and anything unnecessary or dangerous, such as wooden partitions 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 pass; 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.
Half-pike. See Pike.
Hand (the sails). To furl.
Hawser. A large rope or small cable.
Indulgences. The remission by authorised priests of the punishment due to sin. The sale of indulgences was one of the abuses that provoked the Reformation.
Jerk. To cure meat, especially beef, by cutting it into long thin slices and drying it in the sun.
Jury-mast. A small temporary mast often made of a yard; set up instead of a mast that is broken down.
Larboard (or port). The left side of a ship looking towards the bow.
Lay to (lie to). To reduce sail to the lowest limits, so as to become nearly stationary.
Lee. The side or direction opposite to that from which the wind comes.
Line, ship of the. A ship of sufficient size and armament to take a place in the line of battle.
Linguist. Interpreter.
Longboat. See Boats.
Lumber. Sawn timber.
Masts: The masts of a full-rigged three-masted ship are the following: Fore-mast, topmast, topgallant-mast, royal mast. Main-mast, topmast, topgallant-mast, royal mast. Mizzen-mast, topmast, topgallant-mast, royal mast.
Monsoon. See Winds.
Mortar. A kind of gun with a very short bore. It throws its projectile at a great elevation.
Mortar, Cohorn (see chapter 7). Cohorn was a famous Dutch engineer and artillerist in the service of William III.
Nailed up. Spiked. To spike a gun is to render it useless for the time by inserting into the vent a steel pin with side springs, which when inserted open outwards to the shape of an arrowhead so that it cannot be released.
Offing: 1. The most distant part of the sea visible from the shore. 2. A still greater distance, sufficient to avoid the dangers of shipwreck, as "a good offing."
Overreach. To pass.
Parallel, i.e. of latitude or longitude as the case may be.
Pennant, Broad. See Commodore.
Pidreroes. Light Spanish cannon.
Pieces of eight. Old Spanish coins worth about four shillings each. The piece of eight was divided into eight silver reals. Hence the name which was applied to it in the Spanish Main. It was also frequently called a dollar.
Pike. A long shaft or pole, having an iron or steel point, used in medieval warfare, now replaced by the bayonet. A half-pike was a similar weapon having a staff about half the length.
Pink. An obsolete name for a small sailing ship.
Pinnace. See Boats.
Port (or larboard). The left side of a ship looking towards the bow.
Post-captain. An obsolete title for a captain of three years' standing.
Proa. A small Malay vessel.
Quarter. The upper part of a vessel's side from abaft the main mast to the stern.
Quarter gallery. A gallery is a balcony built outside the body of a ship: at the stern (stern gallery) or at the quarters (quarter gallery).
Reef. A portion of a sail that can be drawn close together.
Rosaries. Strings of beads used by Roman Catholics in praying. Each bead told (or counted) represents a prayer.
Scuttle. To make a hole in the bottom of a ship in order to sink it.
Serons (of dollars). A seron or seroon is a kind of small trunk made in Spanish America out of a piece of raw bullock's hide.
Service (of a cable). The part next the anchor secured by cordage wrapped round it.
Ship of the line. See Line.
Shrouds. The stout ropes that are stretched from a masthead of a vessel to the sides or to the rims of a top, serving as a means of ascent and as a lateral strengthening stays to the masts.
Sling. A rope or chain by which a lower yard is suspended.
Sprit-sail. A quadrangular sail stretched from the mast by the help, not of a gaff along its top, but of a sprit (or yard) extending from the mast diagonally to the upper aftmost corner of the sail, as in the case of a London barge.
Sprit-sail yard. Another name for the sprit.
Standing rigging. The parts of a vessel's rigging that are practically permanent.
Starboard. The right side of a ship looking towards the bow.
Stern-chasers. See Chasers.
Streaks (or strakes). Lines of planking.
Supercargo. A person employed by the owners of a ship to go a voyage and to oversee the cargo.
Tacks ("got our tacks on board," chapter 17). Ropes for hauling down and fastening the corners of certain sails.
Taffrail. The upper part of the stern of a ship.
Tie-wig. See Wig.
Tradewind. See Winds.
Transom. A beam across the stern-post to strengthen the after part of the ship.
Traverse. To turn guns to the right or left in aiming.
Wake. The track left by a ship.
Warp. To move a vessel into another position by hauling upon a hawser attached usually to the heads of piles or posts of a wharf.
Wear (a ship). To bring a ship about by putting the helm up. The vessel is first run off before the wind and then brought to on the new tack.
Weather: 1. The windward side. 2. To go to windward of.
Wig. A bag-wig is a wig with a bag to hold the back hair. It was fashionable in the seventeenth century. A tie-wig is a court wig tied with ribbon at the bag.
Winds. The tradewinds are winds which blow all the year through on the open ocean in and near the torrid zone. In the northern hemisphere they blow from the north-east, in the southern from the south-east. The regularity of the tradewind is interfered with by the neighbourhood of large land masses. Their temperature varies much more with the change of seasons than that of the ocean; and this variation produces a change in the direction of the tradewind in the hot season, corresponding distantly to a phenomenon which may be observed, daily instead of half-yearly, on the English coast in hot summer weather, when a sea breeze blows during the day and a land breeze at night. In the northern hemisphere the monsoon--as this periodic wind is called--blows from the south-west (i.e. towards the heated continent of South Asia) from April to October, and from the north-east, as the ordinary trade wind, during the rest of the year.
Works, upper. The sides of a vessel's hull from the water-line to the covering board.
THE END