h, when, she weighed and stood for the Cape of
Good Hope, where, on the eleventh 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 civilized colony, was
not disgraced in an imaginary comparison with the vallies of Juan
Fernandez, and the lawns of Tinian. During his stay he entered about
forty new men; and having by the 3d of April, 1744, completed his
water and provision, he on that day weighed and put to sea; and on
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 learnt 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.

* * * * *

[In concluding the account of this very interesting circumnavigation,
it is necessary to advert to a question of some importance in
literature, as every question must be that involves the claims of
authors and their respective titles to reputation. Nor is the public
often impatient in listening to evidence on such subjects, if the
merit contended for be sufficiently great to justify solicitude as
to its being rightly conferred. That it is so in the case of the
question, Who was the author of this work? no one can doubt, that is
capable of