[Footnote 1: Voyage, &c. by George Anson, Esq. afterwards Lord Anson; compiled from his papers and materials by Richard Walter, M.A. chaplain of H.M.S. Centurion in that expedition--_fifteenth edition_, 4to, Lond. 1776.]
This narrative was originally published under the name of Richard Walter, chaplain to H.M.S. Centurion in the expedition, dedicated by him to John Duke of Bedford, and said to have been compiled by that gentleman from papers and materials furnished for the purpose by Commodore Anson.
As the object of this expedition was of an extensive political nature, intended to humble the power of Spain, in her most valuable yet most vulnerable possessions, by injuring and intercepting the great source of her public treasure, it has been thought proper, on the present occasion, to give a transcript of the reflections made upon the policy and expedience of this important voyage, very soon after its completion, by Dr John Harris, by way of _Introduction_ to his abridged account of this circumnavigation, in his Collection of Voyages and Travels, vol. i. p. 337.
"It is a thing that has been generally taken for granted, ever since Spain has been possessed of her American dominions, and has made use of the riches derived from these to disturb the peace and invade the liberties of her neighbours, that the best way to reduce her strength, and to prevent the bad effects of her evil intentions, would be to attack her in the South Seas. This was pursued with great diligence, and in some measure with success, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, [as has been already shewn in the circumnavigatory voyages of Drake and Candish, almost solely devoted to that object.] In that of her successor, when a new quarrel broke out with that crown, in the year 1624, the first thing thought of by our patriots, who were equally willing to humble the king's enemies and to save the money of the nation, was an expedition to the South Seas, to be carried on at the expence of, and for the benefit of the people; which scheme was entitled _The West-India Association_.
"It may be thought I look a great way back when I offer to the view of the reader the reasons which were then suggested in parliament in support of that scheme. But whoever considers that it is not only the most effectual, but the safest method, to instruct the present age from the sentiments of the last, will readily enter into the reasons which induce me, upon this occasion, to produce the speech of an eminent patriot, in which the nature and scope of that _Association_, as well as the motives on which it is grounded, are very fully and pathetically set forth; and this in such terms, as, if the reader were not told that this was a speech to Sir Dudley Diggs, then chairman of a committee of the whole house, by Sir Benjamin Rudyard, he might mistake it for a speech made only a few years since, so agreeable is it, in language and sentiments, even to our present occasions.