g, Mr
Anson objected both to the appointment of agent-victuallers and to
allowing them to carry a cargo on board the squadron; for he conceived
that in those few amicable ports where the squadron might touch,
he needed not their assistance to contract for any provisions these
places afforded; and, when on the enemy's coast, he did not imagine
they could ever procure him the necessaries he should want, unless
the military operations of his squadron were to be regulated by the
ridiculous views of their trading projects, with which he was resolved
not to comply. All that he thought the government ought to have
done, of this kind, was to put on board, to the value of two or three
thousand pounds, of such goods only as were suitable for the Indians,
or the Spanish planters on the less cultivated parts of the coast, as
it was in such places only that he considered it might be worth
while to truck with the enemy for provisions, and it was sufficiently
evident that a very small cargo would suffice for such places.

Although the commodore objected both to the appointment of these
officers and to their project, of the ill success of which he had
no question, yet, as they had insinuated that their scheme, besides
victualling the squadron, might contribute to the settling a trade on
that coast which might afterwards be carried on without difficulty,
and might become of very considerable national advantage, they were
much listened to by several considerable persons; and, of the fifteen
thousand pounds, which was to be the amount of their cargo, the
government agreed to advance them ten thousand pounds upon imprest,
and the remaining five thousand they raised on bottomry bonds, and the
goods purchased with this latter sum were all that were put on
board the squadron, how much soever their amount might be afterwards
magnified by common report. This cargo was shipped at first in the
Wager store-ship, and one of the victuallers, no part of it being
admitted on board the men-of-war; but, when the commodore was at St
Catharine's, he considered, in case the squadron might be separated,
that it might be pretended that some of the ships were disappointed of
provisions for want of a cargo to truck with, wherefore he distributed
some of the least bulky commodities on board the men-of-war, leaving
the remainder principally on board the Wager, in which it was lost,
and more of the goods perishing, by various accidents to be recited
afterwards,