as, on Christmas
morning, about two o'clock, we were almost all of us sent on shore to
take a set of magnetic observations, which were not completed until the
same hour on the following day. At the same time, to make "assurance
doubly sure" that we should have no pleasure on that day, leave was
stopped to all those remaining on board of the ship. I will not enter
further into this affair. All I shall say is, that Christmas Day, the
day of rejoicing, the day of good-will, was turned into one in which the
worst passions were roused, and in which "curses not loud but deep" were
levelled at the head of the man who, "dressed in a little brief
authority," took this opportunity of exercising the power entrusted to
him. After completing the observations, we moved further down the Bay,
and surveyed the shoals of St. Nicholas; after which we returned to
Manilla, where all gaiety had ceased.

Caviti was once a place of great importance, having been the capital of
Luzon, from whence the galleons conveyed the treasure to Spain. The
arsenal still remains, but in a very dilapidated state: we found the
artificers busily employed completing some gun-boats and small
schooners, which were intended to accompany the Esperanza, Spanish
frigate, in an expedition to an island off Borneo, where the Esperanza
had latterly sustained a defeat from the pirates who inhabited the
island.

At Caviti lie the remains of an old Spanish galleon, one of the few
which had the good fortune to escape Commodore Anson. The whole of one
side of the vessel is gone, and she is now fast falling to pieces, but
the Spaniards look upon her with great reverence. She is a relic of
their former grandeur; and I was informed by a Spanish gentleman that
she never would be broken up. I looked upon her, if not with reverence,
at least with sympathy; and as I made a sketch of her my thoughts
naturally turned to the rise and fall of empires, and I communed with
myself as to what would be the date in which England would be in the
same position as modern Spain, and fall back upon her former glories by
way of consolation for her actual decay.

[Illustration: SPANISH GALLEON.]

On our arrival at Manilla, whether it was that the captain thought that
we might too readily console ourselves for our Christmas disappointment,
or that he had heard (which I doubt not was the case) the expressions of
disgust which had been so universal, we found that all leave was
stopped. A few of us,