After a fruitless cruise, Anson determined to burn three of the Spanish vessels which he had seized and equipped. Distributing the crews and cargo upon the Centurion and the Gloucester , the only two vessels remaining to him, he decided upon the 6th of May, 1742, to make for China, where he hoped to find reinforcements and supplies.
But this voyage, which he expected to accomplish in sixty days, took him fully four months. After a violent gale, the Gloucester , having all but foundered, and her crew being too reduced to work her, was burnt. Her cargo of silver, and her supplies were trans-shipped to the Centurion , which alone remained of all that magnificent fleet which two years earlier had set sail from England!
Thrown out of his course, far to the north, Anson discovered on the 26th
