olved to send a boat, under
colour of the night, into the harbour of Acapulco to see if the Manila
ship was there or not. To execute this project, the barge was despatched
the 6th of February. She did not return to us again till the 11th, when
the officers acquainted Mr. Anson, that, agreeable to our suspicion,
there was nothing like a harbour in the place where the Spanish pilots
had at first asserted Acapulco to lie; that, when they had satisfied
themselves in this particular, they steered to the eastward in hopes of
discovering it, and had coasted along shore thirty-two leagues; that in
this whole range they met chiefly with sandy beaches of a great length,
over which the sea broke with so much violence that it was impossible for
a boat to land; that at the end of their run they could just discover two
paps at a very great distance to the eastward, which from their
appearance and their latitude they concluded to be those in the
neighbourhood of Acapulco, but that, not having a sufficient quantity of
fresh water and provision for their passage thither and back again, they
were obliged to return to the Commodore to acquaint him with their
disappointment. On this intelligence we all made sail to the eastward, in
order to get into the neighbourhood of that port, the Commodore resolving
to send the barge a second time upon the same enterprise when we were
arrived within a moderate distance. And the next day, which was the 12th
of February, we being by that time considerably advanced, the barge was
again despatched, and particular instructions given to the officers to
preserve themselves from being seen from the shore. On the 19th of
February she returned, and we found that we were indeed disappointed in
our expectation of intercepting the galleon before her arrival at
Acapulco; but we learned other circumstances which still revived our
hopes, and which, we then conceived, would more than balance the
opportunity we had already lost. For though our negro prisoners* informed
us that the galleon arrived at Acapulco on our 9th of January, which was
about twenty days before we fell in with this coast, yet they at the same
time told us that the galleon had delivered her cargo and was taking in
water and provisions for her return, and that the Viceroy of Mexico had
by proclamation fixed her departure from Acapulco to the 14th of March,
New Style.

(*Note. Three negroes in a fishing canoe had been captured by the
Centurion's barge