George Anson, 1st Viscount Anson

“ George, at any amnesty for Fox; Charles, at not being promoted himself. Lord Halifax, who demanded to be Secretary of State for the West Indies, a theatre on which Pitt meditated to shine himself, threw up on being refused; but, having outlived his income, was forced to re-accept, what, unless he had persisted, he had done more wisely to retain. The Duke of Bedford was warm against the new system, but was soon composed. The City, too, was indignant at the re-establishment of Lord Anson: but when the chiefs are accorded, the mob of a faction are little regarded. ”

“ For the Duke and Duchess of Bristol, who between them had above three hundred men, buried no more than two from the coast of Brazil to Juan Fernandez; and out of a hundred and eighty-three hands which were on board the Duke alone, there were only twenty-one sick of the scurvy when they arrived at that island. Whence as men-of-war are much better provided with all conveniences than privateers, we might doubtless have appeared before Baldivia in full strength, and in a condition of entering immediately on action ”

“ The Life of Anson by Sir John Barrow is by no means free from serious faults both of omission and commission, and is absolutely crowded with mistakes of sheer carelessness, e.g. the misspellings of names. The well-known 'Voyage round the World' bears on the title-page of the 1st edition (1748) 'compiled from papers and other materials of the Right Honourable George Anson, and published imder his direction by Richard Walter, M.A., chaplain of his Majesty's ship Centurion in that expedition.' Many years afterwards a claim was made that the work was written, not by Mr. ”

“ Anson, after weighing from St. Helen's, tided it down the Channel for the first forty-eight hours; and, on the 20th, in the morning, we discovered off the Ram Head the Dragon, Winchester, South Sea Castle, and Rye, with a number of merchantmen under their convoy. These we joined about noon the same day, our commodore having orders to see them (together with the St. Albans and Lark) as far into the sea as their course and ours lay together. When we came in sight of this last mentioned fleet, Mr. Anson first hoisted his broad pennant, and was saluted by all the men-of-war in company. ”

“ The Marquis of Lansdowne, the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Clarendon, the Earl Granville, Sir George Grey, Sir Charles Wood, have expressed their willingness to be members of the Administration which Viscount Palmerston is endeavouring to form, provided it can be constructed upon a basis sufficiently broad to give a fair prospect of duration. ”

“ The Duke of Newcastle, fearing to be attacked himself, and the Chancellor, as apprehensive for his silent son-in-law, Lord Anson, the head of the Admiralty and patron of the Bill, prevailed on Lord Northumberland to rise, commend the Bill, and then move to have it put off for six weeks. The Duke of Bedford called him to order for entering upon the Bill before it was read. ”

“ He has never been abusive, insulting, coarse, virulent—oh, never! he has not once lost his temper. He has treated the noble Viscount with marked courtesy, and has called him his right honourable and noble friend scores of times; yet, hearing him, it has been impossible to avoid the impression that if any man was ever actuated by the conviction that his right honourable and noble friend was an impostor and a humbug, with a considerable dash of the traitor ”

“ An old print represents an officer of the Centurion dropping booty into the apron of a lady friend. Behind him the waggons and their guard proceed, with a great display of flags. The passing of the treasure was acclaimed with much enthusiasm both upon the road and in London. It was no doubt the biggest prize ever brought to England by a single ship. Anson's share made him a rich man. The rest of the survivors profited according to their rank. ”

“ Henry Campling, was killed while assisting the surgeon in dressing an amputation. The total loss sustained by the Brisk was one killed and three wounded.
Captain Anson died at the seat of his eldest brother, (now Viscount Anson) , Shugborough, co. Stafford, Oct. 19, 1830. ”

“ Thus he seems to have been really and thoroughly annoyed when he found that George Anson, who was Melbourne’s secretary, and who was described as “a tried, discreet, and sensible man, high-bred in feeling as in bearing, capable without prompting of giving good advice when asked, and incapable of the folly of making a suggestion when it was not wanted,” had been selected by Victoria to fill the post of private secretary to himself. There was [313] considerable correspondence between the Royal lovers on this subject, part of which is given in the Letters of Queen Victoria. ”

“ I say, powerful man, not man in power, for Lord Hardwicke, Lord Anson, the Duke of Newcastle, &c., were not then in place—but them Geary must have meant, for he could not fear disobliging Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple by speaking out, when it was his silence that prejudiced them. It was plain Geary thought, what happened so soon afterwards, that the command of the Admiralty would still be in Lord Anson. ”

“ Anson immediately repaired to Spithead, with a resolution to sail with the first fair wind, flattering himself that all his difficulties were now at an end. For though he knew by the musters that his squadron wanted three hundred seamen of their complement (a deficiency which, with all its assiduity, he had not been able to get supplied) , yet, as Sir Charles Wager informed him, that an order from the Board of Admiralty was dispatched to Sir John Norris to spare him the numbers which he wanted, he doubted not of its being complied with. ”

“ Before the tender sailed for the Downs, Anson discovered that the dockyard men had scamped their work in the Centurion. They had supplied her with a defective foremast "Not fitt for Sarves." High up on the mast was "a rotten Nott eleven inches deep," a danger to spar and ship together. The dockyard officials, who had probably pocketed the money for a good spar, swore that the Nott only "wants a Plugg drove in" to be perfection. Dockyard men at this time and for many years afterwards deserved to be suspended both from their duties and by their necks. ”

“ The Noble House. Two proposed identifications of the ‘noble house’, which pretends to a duke’s title, mentioned at 2. 4. 15-6. have been made. The expenditure of much energy in the attempt to fix so veiled an allusion is hardly worth while. Jonson of course depended upon contemporary rumor, for which we have no data.
Cunningham’s suggestion that Buckingham is referred to is not convincing. Buckingham’s father was Sir George Villiers of Brooksby in Leicestershire. He was not himself raised to the nobility until August 27, 1616, when he was created Viscount Villiers and Baron Waddon. ”

“ Pitt, and the almost universal acquiescence to the Favourite’s influence, persuaded both him and his dependents, that they had but to give the tone, and prerogative would master all opposition. Nor did his partisans do more than was practised by the Favourite himself. If they insulted the nation, he ruled the Court with a rod of iron. The Queen, her brother, and the brothers of the King, were taught to feel their total want of credit. The Duke of York, as Lord Anson was dying, ambitioned the post of Lord High Admiral, but did not dare even to ask it. ”

“ His life was singularly prosperous, and prolonged to extreme old age. He became Viscount Townshend by the death of his father in 1764. In 1767 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; in 1787 he was created a Marquis, and in 1807, he died, aged 84, being then a Field Marshal, Governor of Jersey, and Colonel of a regiment of Dragoons. Memoirs of George the Second, vol. i. p. 33; vol. ii. p. 337. Memoirs of a distinguished Political and Literary Character, p. 71—E.
25 Charles Lenox, third Duke of Richmond. ”

“ Bradshaw was deeply affected; owned he had been miserable ever since; said he could not live without honour, but would say anything that Anson and Gurwood (and he felt his honour as safe with the former as the latter) would agree that he could and ought to say; and George Anson drew up his apology, and did not make it stronger, because he would not press him hard. The fact is, he is much indebted to Horsman for getting him out, in some measure, of a very bad scrape.
The Queen has been attacked for going down in person to Parliament, just after the news arriving of the Landgravine’s death ”

“ This was exactly the manner in which he had formerly treated Fox, departing from his own concessions before he had time to ratify them. Lord Hardwicke behaved more uniformly; declared he would not take the Seals again; desired nobody should be displaced for him; if the Presidentship of the Council, or the Privy Seal should be vacant, he would gladly accept either: for Lord Anson he peremptorily insisted on the Treasurership of the Navy. Pitt now found his error; by facilitating Newcastle’s escape from the inquiries, he remained at the mercy of that Duke, not the Duke at his. ”

“ But many days had now passed, and instead of the whole of the West Country flocking to him in a body, only the humbler amongst the people had come forward. Not one single gentleman with a following of servants and retainers had placed himself under his standard. The [Pg 266] Viscount was the only man of rank who had joined him since his landing, and he came alone and unattended, in defiance of his father's wishes and conviction, and more from personal desire to be quit of the perplexities of his position than from sympathy for the cause. ”

“ Can we wonder, that such men should be invincible!
On the 13th of June, Lord Nelson received permission for his return to England; and immediately thanked the Lords of the Admiralty, in an answer addressed to Mr. Nepean, for the very flattering and handsome manner in which their lordships had expressed their acquiescence with his request of the 17th of May. Having received, at the same time, a commission from his majesty, to invest his friend Rear-Admiral Graves with the military order of the Bath, his lordship performed that ceremony, on board the St George, next day, in the following manner. ”

“ Anson taking it for granted that this enterprize had succeeded, and that Porto Bello perhaps might be then garrisoned by British troops, he hoped that on his arrival at the isthmus he should easily procure an intercourse with our countrymen on the other side, either by the Indians, who were greatly disposed in our favour, or even by the Spaniards themselves, some of whom, for proper rewards, might be induced to carry on this intelligence, which, after it was once begun, might be continued with very little difficulty ”

“ Anson's receiving any other intelligence that should make it necessary to unite our strength. These orders being delivered to the captain of the Gloucester, and all our business compleated, we, on the Saturday following, being the 19th of September, weighed our anchor, in company with our prize, and got out of the bay, taking our last leave of the island of Juan Fernandes, and steering to the eastward, with an intention of joining the Tryal sloop in her station off Valparaiso. ”

“ In consequence of these orders, we had fresh beef sent on board us continually for our daily expence, and what was wanting to make up our allowance we received from our victualler the Anna pink, in order to preserve the provisions on board our squadron entire for our future service. The season of the year growing each day {58} less favourable for our passage round Cape Horn, Mr. Anson was very desirous of leaving this place as soon as possible, and we were at first in hopes that our whole business would be done and we should be in a readiness to sail in about a fortnight from our arrival ”

“ Nor is the constitution of the empire, or the general orders of the state, less liable to exception, since that form of government which does not in the first place provide for the security of the public against the enterprizes of foreign powers is certainly a most defective institution: and yet this populous, this rich and extensive country, so pompously celebrated for its refined wisdom and policy, was conquered about an age since by a handful of Tartars ”

“ Anson with many more of our officers and great part of our crew, amounting in the whole to a hundred and thirteen persons. Thus were we all, both at sea and on shore, reduced to the utmost despair by this catastrophe; those on shore conceiving they had no means left them ever to depart from the island, whilst we on board, being utterly unprepared to struggle with the fury of the seas and winds we were now exposed to, expected each moment to be our last. ”

“ In 1624, owing probably to his temporary friendship with the duke of Buckingham, he was advanced to the rank of a viscount, but notwithstanding this he remained during the early parliaments of Charles I. champion of the popular cause, and was in Clarendon’s words “the oracle of those who were called Puritans in the worst sense, and steered all their counsels and designs.” Afterwards his energies found a new outlet in helping to colonize Providence Island, and in interesting himself in other and similar enterprises in America. ”

“ 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. ”