About Anson’s voyage (from Wikipedia):
While Great Britain was fighting the War of Jenkins’ Ear with Spain in 1740, Commodore George Anson led a squadron of eight ships on a mission to disrupt or capture the Pacific Ocean possessions of the Spanish Empire. Returning to Britain in 1744 by way of China and thus completing a circumnavigation of the globe, the voyage was notable for the capture of the Manila Galleon but also for horrific losses from disease with only 188 men of the original 1,854 surviving. An account of the voyage was published in 1748 which being widely read by the general public was a great commercial success and “is still esteemed as the story of a remarkable voyage extremely well told”.
While Great Britain was fighting the War of Jenkins’ Ear with Spain in 1740, Commodore George Anson led a squadron of eight ships on a mission to disrupt or capture the Pacific Ocean possessions of the Spanish Empire. Returning to Britain in 1744 by way of China and thus completing a circumnavigation of the globe, the voyage was notable for the capture of the Manila Galleon but also for horrific losses from disease with only 188 men of the original 1,854 surviving. An account of the voyage was published in 1748 which being widely read by the general public was a great commercial success and “is still esteemed as the story of a remarkable voyage extremely well told”.
Although several private journals of the voyage had been published, the official version of events was published in London 1748, as A Voyage Round the World in 1740-4 by George Anson Esq, now Lord Anson, Commander-in-Chief of a Squadron of His Majesty’s Ships Sent upon an Expedition to the South Seas Compiled from his Papers and Materials by Richard Walter, MA, Chaplain of His Majesty’s Ship The Centurion, in that Expedition. It was a great popular and commercial success and a 5th edition was already in print by 1749. As well as detailing the adventures of the expedition, it contained a huge amount of useful information for future navigators and with 42 detailed charts and engravings, most based on drawings by Capt. Piercy Brett, it laid the basis for later scientific and survey expeditions by Captain Cook and others. The final words from the authorized account were:
‘Thus was this expedition finished, when it had lasted three years and nine months, after having, by its event, strongly evinced this important truth: That though prudence, intrepidity, and perseverance united are not exempted from the blows of adverse fortune, yet in a long series of transactions they usually rise superior to its power, and in the end rarely fail of proving successful.’
