found on board, declaring that he should consider it as his duty to do Mr. Anson justice at all times; adding that his usage of the men prisoners was such as could never be forgot, and such as he could never fail to acknowledge and recite upon all occasions: but that his behaviour to the women was so extraordinary, and so extremely honourable, that he doubted all the regard due to his own ecclesiastical character would be scarcely sufficient to render it credible. Indeed we were afterwards informed that he and the rest of our prisoners had not been silent on this head, but had, both at Lima and at other places, given the greatest encomiums to our commodore; the Jesuit in particular, as we were told, having on his account interpreted in a lax and hypothetical sense that article of his church which asserts the impossibility of hereticks being saved. Nor let it be imagined that the impressions which the Spaniards hence received to our advantage is a matter of small import; for, not to mention several of our countrymen who have already felt the good effects of these prepossessions, the Spaniards are a nation whose good opinion of us is doubtless of more consequence than that of all the world {192} besides, not only as the commerce we had formerly carried on with them, and perhaps may again hereafter, is so extremely valuable, but also as the transacting it does so immediately depend on the honour and good faith of those who are intrusted with its management. However, had no national conveniences attended it, the commodore's equity and good temper would not less have deterred him from all tyranny and cruelty to those whom the fortune of war had put into his hands. I shall only add, that by his constant attachment to these humane and prudent maxims he has acquired a distinguished reputation amongst the Creolian Spaniards, which is not confined merely to the coast of the South Seas, but is extended through all the Spanish settlements in America; so that his name is frequently to be met with in the mouths of most of the Spanish inhabitants of that prodigious empire. {193} CHAPTER VII FROM OUR DEPARTURE FROM PAITA TO OUR ARRIVAL AT QUIBO When we got under sail from the coast of Paita (which, as I have already observed, was about midnight on the 16th of November) we stood to the westward, and in the morning the commodore gave orders that the whole squadron should spread themselves to look out for the _Gloucester_. For we then drew near the station where Captain Mitchel had been directed to cruise, and we hourly expected to get sight of him; but the whole day passed without seeing him.