HOMEWARD BOUND.
In pursuance of the promises of the Viceroy, the provisions were begun to
be sent on board the day after the audience, and four days after the
Commodore embarked at Canton for the Centurion, and on the 7th of
December the Centurion and her prize unmoored and stood down the river,
passing through the Bocca Tigris on the 10th. And on this occasion I must
observe that the Chinese had taken care to man the two forts on each side
of that passage with as many men as they could well contain, the greatest
part of them armed with pikes and matchlock muskets. These garrisons
affected to show themselves as much as possible to the ships, and were
doubtless intended to induce Mr. Anson to think more reverently than he
had hitherto done of the Chinese military power. For this purpose they
were equipped with much parade, having a great number of colours exposed
to view, and on the castle in particular there were laid considerable
heaps of large stones, and a soldier of unusual size, dressed in very
sightly armour, stalked about on the parapet with a battleaxe in his hand
endeavouring to put on as important and martial an air as possible,
though some of the observers on board the Centurion shrewdly suspected,
from the appearance of his armour, that instead of steel, it was composed
only of a particular kind of glittering paper.
The Commodore, on the 12th of December, anchored before the town of
Macao. Whilst the ships lay here the merchants of Macao finished their
agreement for the galleon, for which they had offered 6,000 dollars; this
was much short of her value, but the impatience of the Commodore to get
to sea, to which the merchants were no strangers, prompted them to insist
on so unequal a bargain.
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