Though of considerable length, the importance of this narrative forbids all attempts to alter it in any respect; except that it has been necessary to leave out the explanations of several engraved views of coasts and harbours, inserted in the original, but which were greatly too large for admission, and would have been rendered totally useless by being reduced to any convenient use for the octavo form of this collection. Indeed, to have introduced all the engravings of plans and views, necessary for the illustration of this and many other voyages and travels, would have been utterly incompatible with the nature and circumstances of this work; as nothing less than a complete Atlas and entire Neptune of the whole globe could have sufficed, attended by an enormous expence, and at the same time inadmissible into octavo volumes. It has therefore been indispensably requisite, on all occasions, to confine our illustrations of that kind to a few reduced charts, merely sufficient to convey general notions of geographical circumstances, and occasionally sketch plans of harbours, straits, islands, and capes, explanatory of particular and important places. Such of our readers, therefore, as require more complete illustrations of geography, topography, and hydrography, must have recourse to Atlasses, Neptunes, and coasting pilots. [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. * * * * *