d; and therefore
this ought to be considered as one of the strongest arguments for
encouraging such voyages.[5]--_Harris._

[Footnote 3: It is not easy to conceive how Harris should have fallen
into this enormous error. To say nothing of the greater length and
difficulty of passing round Cape Horn, rather than the Cape of Good
Hope, the difference in longitudes is sufficient to establish the
absolute contrary of the position in the text. The longitude, for
instance, of the island of Ceylon, by the eastern passage, is only
80 deg. E. whereas by the western passage it is 280 W. an excess of 200
degrees. Even Canton in China, is only in 113 deg. E. but in 247 deg. W. an
excess of 134 degrees.--E.]

[Footnote 4: To say nothing of the absurdity of the partial instances
adduced, it may be mentioned that, only a few years ago, an English
East Indiaman performed the voyage from England to Madras, delivered
his outward-bound cargo, took on board a new cargo, and returned to
England, all within nine months.--E.]

[Footnote 5: The remaining observations of Harris, supplementary
to his abbreviated account of this expedition, have no manner of
connection with the subject in hand, and are therefore omitted.]

* * * * *

George Anson, the commodore on this expedition, was born in 1697,
being the third son of William Anson, Esq. of Shuckborough, in the
county of Stafford. Taking an early inclination for the naval service,
and after passing through the usual inferior steps, he was appointed
second lieutenant of the Hampshire in 1716. He was raised to the rank
of master and commander in 1722, and obtained the rank of post captain
in 1724, with the command of the Scarborough man-of-war. Between that
time and the year 1733, he made three voyages to North Carolina; and
having acquired considerable wealth, he appears to have purchased an
estate in that colony, where he erected a small town of his own name,
which gave the name of Anson County to the surrounding district. In
the years 1738 and 1739, he made another voyage to America and the
coast of Africa; and, without proceeding to hostilities, removed
certain obstructions under which the English trade on the coast of
Guinea had suffered from the French.

In the _War of the Merchants_, as it was called by Sir Robert Walpole,
which broke out in 1739 between Britain and Spain, Captain Anson was
appointed to the command of the expedition, the narrative of w