Introduction
Commodore George Anson’s voyage round the world during the War of Jenkins’s Ear (1739-1748) has become a celebrated feat in the annals of British naval history and beyond. The conflict between Britain and Spain erupted over conditions of trade in the Caribbean, a clash graphically manifested in the treatment of Robert Jenkins, a British merchant whose ear Spanish officers cut off as punishment. Colonial and continental considerations led Britain to declare war in 1739. The war expanded to include hostilities with France, merging with the War of the Austrian Succession.Footnote 1 Taking the war to the Spanish empire in the Pacific, Anson commanded a squadron of six ships: HMS Centurion (60 guns), Gloucester (50 guns), Severn (50 guns), Pearl (40 guns), Wager (24 guns), and Tryal (8 guns). He had orders to capture the Manila galleon, incite rebellion against Spanish rule in Peru, and return via China. Only half of the ships entered the Pacific to harass Spanish shipping and settlements on the coast of the Americas. The Centurion alone survived the passage across the Pacific to reach Tinian and then China from whence, after repairs, she went on to capture the galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga in Cape Espiritu Santo laden with silver on the return voyage from Acapulco.Footnote 2 During this voyage lasting from 1740 to 1744, Anson visited Santa Catarina in southern Brazil, the Viceroyalties of Peru and New Spain, Macao, and Canton (Guangzhou) (see figures 1 and 2). This article seeks to revisit the significance of Anson’s circumnavigation by shifting the focus from the expedition itself to the world around the voyage.
Map of Anson’s voyage with important events marked. Adapted from Boyle Sommerville, Commodore Anson’s Voyage into the South Seas and Around the World (London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1934).
Figures 1 and 2 Long description
Map detailing the voyage of Commodore Anson′s squadron from England to the Isle of Tinian. Key events are marked along the route: 27 August 1742, arrival at Tinian; February-March 1742, laying in wait for the galleon at Acapulco; September-November 1741, capture of four ships on the Pacific Coast; 13 November 1741, sack of Paita; 21 December 1740 to 28 January 1741, repairs and provisioning at Santa Catarina. The map shows the path across the Atlantic Ocean, around South America and into the Pacific Ocean, highlighting significant stops and actions taken during the journey.
The dramatic tale of a British naval officer leading a force across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and reaching an apotheosis with the capture of the Manila galleon has inspired much scholarship, most of which is based on English language materials. During his voyage round the world, Anson visited parts of the Spanish, Portuguese, and Qing empires, respectively an enemy, ally, and neutral power. Most studies in English of Anson’s journey neglect the perspectives from these areas. By assessing the responses of three empires to Anson’s visits, this paper reveals that despite having a negligible impact on the wider war, Anson’s expedition was a serious matter for these empires, each of which took significant measures in response.
The bulk of scholarship on Anson’s relies heavily on the authorized account of the expedition, A Voyage Round the World in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, IV by George Anson, Esq. Footnote 3 This triumphalist account, containing much information and intelligence about the South Sea in particular, has set the tone for much of the discussion about the voyage in different contexts across time.Footnote 4 The most impressive scholarly work on Anson’s voyage, remains Glyn Williams’s The Prize of All the Oceans. Williams compiled many of the sources cited in his magisterial account in Documents Relating to Anson’s Voyage Round the World, 1740-1744, which includes naval, commercial, personal, and other records.Footnote 5 Williams’s works cite some Spanish materials, revealing the importance of non-English perspectives on Anson’s voyage.
Assessing the voyage using Spanish sources, Sabrina Guerra Moscoso argues that Anson’s activities exposed the vulnerability of the Pacific coast of Spanish America, which triggered defensive reforms in the latter eighteenth century.Footnote 6 Spanish language scholarship on Anson’s voyage assesses the impacts of his expedition on the Viceroyalty of New Spain or Chile and discusses its significance for the Spanish Pacific.Footnote 7 Scholarship focusing on non-English sources reveals that Anson’s voyage had a significant impact beyond Britain. Discussing Anson’s visit to China, Robert Markley cites a translated Chinese source by Yuan Mei to show how Anson, the East India Company (EIC), and Qing administrators understood an early encounter between a British naval officer and a Chinese official differently.Footnote 8 Brief mentions of Anson in Portuguese scholarship suggest his visits were an important historical event for Brazil and Macao as well.Footnote 9
By moving beyond English materials, this article seeks to reexamine the significance of Anson’s voyage round the world. Using Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese sources, it will examine how three different empires perceived and responded to Anson’s presence. His forces disrupted shipping on the Peruvian coast, sacked Paita, attempted to blockade Acapulco, and captured the Manila galleon. His incursion into the Pacific caused much distress and disruption necessitating defensive measures and economic reforms in the trans-Pacific Spanish empire. His visits to territories administered by Britain’s ally, Portugal, gave urgency to the need to consolidate control over Santa Catarina and strained relations with the Qing at Macao. Officials in neutral China viewed Anson as a “barbarian” (i.e. foreign) chief whose enmity with Spain had little to do with the Qing empire. Qing officials adopted a policy of non-intervention in European conflicts, and when the War of Jenkins’s Ear reached Chinese shores, they implemented administrative reforms around Macao in response to increasing threats from European naval forces. Anson’s expedition, heroic as it may have been, was peripheral to and had little impact on the war’s main theatre of Europe.Footnote 10 By examining the world around Anson’s voyage, however, it becomes clear that his actions had profound implications for the Spanish, Portuguese, and Qing empires.
The Spanish Empire: An Incursion into the “Spanish Lake”
By the time of Anson’s voyage, Spain still held unparalleled dominance over the South Sea, with the Viceroyalties of Peru and New Spain controlling much of the littoral of the Pacific from its eastern rim to the Philippines. Before the eighteenth century, Spain relied mainly on nature and distance to protect its trans-Pacific possessions.Footnote 11 Piracy and other security concerns drove Spanish colonial officials and subjects to develop defensive measures on both sides of the Pacific, such as ‘Catholic anti-piracy’ in the Philippines and raising indigenous militias in Mexico.Footnote 12 English privateers had caused problems for Spain’s Pacific empire before, but Anson, as a Royal Navy officer commanding six warships, marked a new form of threat.Footnote 13 His forces harassed the Viceroyalty of Peru by land and sea and disrupted the economic lifeline of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in the Pacific. Though of limited strategic significance in Europe, Anson’s actions caused great anxiety among authorities in Spanish America. His incursion into the Pacific shattered the illusion of the South Sea as a “Spanish lake,” catalysing strategic reconsiderations and retrospective economic and defence reforms to protect Spain’s vast possessions and valuable trade on both sides of the Pacific.Footnote 14
By the time Anson entered this ocean, the Armada del Mar del Sur (South Sea Fleet), the Spanish naval force tasked with protecting maritime trade between Callao and Panama, had largely ceased its functions. The force was reduced to two decrepit ships built nearly five decades earlier, La Concepción and the Sacramento.Footnote 15 To remedy naval shortcomings, the Spanish government raised a funds at Santander for “Ships under the charge of the Chief of the squadron, D.n Joseph Pisarro [i.e., José Pizarro].”Footnote 16 This force consisted of the Asia (66 guns), the Hermiona (54), Guipuscoa (74), San Estevan (40), and Esperanza (50).Footnote 17 By number of guns, the Spanish force was more than a match for Anson’s. Pizarro received orders to thwart Anson’s designs and provide defence for Chile and Peru.Footnote 18 Dispatching a naval force was Spain’s main course of action to counter naval threats; when Pizarro’s ships failed to round Cape Horn, virtually the whole of the Pacific coast of Spanish America was left without substantial naval protection.
Despite his squadron’s setbacks, Anson took advantage of this situation. The loss of three fighting ships and, with the wreck of the Wager, the field guns and other arms for land operations, dashed any hopes of a significant territorial campaign.Footnote 19 The focus of the battered, scorbutic remnants of Anson’s force, thus shifted from fomenting uprising on land to capturing prizes at sea.Footnote 20 In late 1741, Anson’s forces captured three Spanish merchant ships trading on the Pacific coast.Footnote 21 The seeming ease with which Anson’s weakened squadron captured these ships revealed the limits of Spain’s terrestrial-oriented defence policies, which had led to a neglect of naval forces in the region.Footnote 22 Cognizant of its naval unpreparedness on the Pacific Coast of the Americas and worried that Anson might attack Panama and link up with British forces at Portobello, Spanish authorities decided belatedly to make defensive preparations.Footnote 23 Anson’s victory at Paita would reveal the inadequacy of these measures.
The viceroy of Peru, the Marquis de Villa Garcia, called on Jorge Juan y Santacilia and Antonio de Ulloa, two naval officers who had accompanied a French scientific expedition to South America, to put down their astronomical instruments and instead take up “several commissions… for putting the coasts and other parts of the kingdom in the best posture of defence.”Footnote 24 Lacking warships, Villa Garcia had a merchant vessel carry Juan and Ulloa on their mission, calling first at Paita on 15 August 1741 and eventually arriving at Quito three weeks later.Footnote 25 Whatever defensive measures the Spanish officers-cum-scientists oversaw at Paita proved inadequate; Anson’s men sacked the town two months later.
Spanish prisoners’ reports that “a very considerable sum of money” belonging to Lima merchants and intended for purchasing “a part of the cargoe of the Manila ship” made Paita a tempting prize.Footnote 26 That Anson and even some privateers before him were able to pillage the Pacific entrepôt of Paita revealed the Spanish empire’s chronic lack of defences. Anson and his men benefited handsomely from the assault, claiming “a million and a half of dollars” of damage to the town and capturing “30,000l sterling,” “by much the most important booty we made upon that coast.”Footnote 27 The sack of Paita was a limited, but lucrative, British victory against the Spanish empire in the Pacific.
For Spanish authorities, Anson’s sack of Paita was “melancholy news.”Footnote 28 It caused a crisis in Spanish imperial defence in the South Sea. The Marquis of Villa Garcia again summoned Juan and Ulloa giving them command of two “merchant ships employed in these seas,” to protect the Chilean coast. Even after the crisis of the sack of Paita, Spain could not spare warships for the defence of the long Pacific coast of its empire, “all the King’s ships being sent in the Panama squadron.”Footnote 29 Meanwhile, the warship Esperanza, part of Pizarro’s squadron, finally rounded Cape Horn and arrived in Chile in early 1743. She eventually replaced the decrepit Sacramento, finally adding a warship to the largely defunct South Sea Armada.Footnote 30 By this time, though, Anson had moved on to threaten another key component of the Spanish empire in the Pacific, the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Acapulco, Manila, and the galleon trade that linked the two ports loomed large in the considerations for Anson’s expedition. Anson’s orders allowed him to “look out for the Acapulco ship.”Footnote 31 By the eighteenth century, the “Acapulco ship,” also known as the Manila galleon, had come to represent the institutionalized trade between the Spanish possessions of Mexico and the Philippines, through which Spain could access Chinese and other Asian goods. The galleon trade was the lifeline of the Spanish empire in the Pacific. The American silver carried in the galleons was vital for the Philippine economy and administration. Galleons carried the silver, officials, soldiers, and missionaries upon which the Spanish presence in the Philippines depended. At the other end of the Pacific, the cargoes that the galleons carried from Asia supplied the Acapulco fairs, an important component of the economy of Spanish America. Galleons were also important conduits of cultural exchange.Footnote 32 In going after the Manila galleon, Anson threatened not only trade but the whole system upon which the Spanish empire in the Pacific rested.Footnote 33
While Spanish authorities anticipated Anson’s presence, they proved limited in their ability to respond. The viceroy of New Spain, the Count of Fuenclara, was aware that “Jorge Hanson” was in the vicinity of New Spain and had designs to capture the galleon. Fuenclara accordingly ordered that “precautions” be taken at “Acapulco and the other Ports.” Local authorities received orders to stay vigilant and keep their militias in preparation to “prevent the British from landing men and causing the damages experienced at Paita.”Footnote 34 At Acapulco, worries about a repeat of Paita catalysed defensive measures resulting in an unprecedented strength of “royal force” and fortifications at Acapulco.Footnote 35 The mobilization of militias and increasing land forces along the coast, however, proved a limited deterrent to naval activity.
Upon arriving off Acapulco in early 1742, Anson positioned his ships outside the city’s harbour to intercept the galleon when it set out to return to the Philippines. Anson’s mere presence at “the mouth of the San Juan River, not many [leagues] from Acapulco” was enough to cause panic. Spanish officials formed of a Council of War in the city in response. The council and other officials met on 28 February 1742 and voted unanimously to delay the departure of the galleon Nuestra Señora del Pilar and to send notice to the Philippines not to send a galleon to Acapulco; the Royal Treasury and merchants of the galleon trade would split the cost of the delays.Footnote 36 Anson’s “harassing the Royal dominions” and sack of Paita disrupted trade between Mexico and the Philippines.Footnote 37 The delay of the departure of the Pilar adversely affected the mercantile community at Manila, which the captain-general there reported as “bankrupt” and feeling “rather melancholic” as a result.Footnote 38
Anson eventually gave up on waiting for the Manila-bound galleon, deciding to return home via China and the Cape of Good Hope in April of 1742.Footnote 39 In crossing the Pacific, Anson approached one of the most vulnerable parts of the Spanish empire. In the Philippines, Captain-General and Governor Gaspar de la Torre took various measures “for the security and defence of the Plaza of Manila, Port of Cavite, and adjacent Provinces; and likewise for that of the Galleons of the New Spain Run, in case the English attempt hostility.” These measures, included stockpiling rice at Manila, seeking donations to help purchase arms for fortifications and ships, and issuing orders to provincial authorities to ensure their defences were adequate.Footnote 40
The inadequacy of Spanish defences in the Pacific became obvious when Anson’s ship, HMS Centurion, arrived at the island of Tinian, one of the Marianas and a Spanish territory, in August 1742. The crew of the Centurion remained at Tinian for nearly two months taking much needed respite and recovering from the gruelling passage across the Pacific.Footnote 41 Isidoro Alvares de Nava, the acting governor of the Marianas, reported that while Anson’s force was on the island, they captured six men from a canoe carrying provisions to a Spanish garrison in the area.Footnote 42 The Spanish authorities’ inability to prevent a decrepit British warship from visiting and provisioning on an island nominally under their control revealed the severe limits of their power in the Pacific Basin.
After departing Tinian in October 1742, HMS Centurion sailed for the coast of China. Spanish authorities in the Philippines remained apprised of his activities. A letter from Canton informed Gaspar de la Torre that “the squadron of Jorge Anson” was careening near Canton. Another report from Canton mentioned “efforts made by friends of this Colony [i.e. the Philippines] to hinder the Zenturion [sic] from preparing” but concluded that these “had no effect.”Footnote 43 In response to reports about Anson’s presence in China, de la Torre worried that the British force “might enter harassing as many of these Provinces as possible until penetrating to this Capital.” He accordingly divided the population of Manila into “Spanish, Mestizos, Naturals [indigenes, sic], and Creoles,” tasking each group with raising armed companies; he also sent orders to Cavite that all “Galleys, and other necessary small vessels” be armed to prevent any British landing attempts.Footnote 44 He further decided to arm the Pilar, the delayed galleon which had arrived at the end of March, along with two “galiots” and dispatch them to the entrance to the San Bernardino Strait “as much to wait for the Ship to arrive as to secure [the area] for the departure on the [Acapulco] Voyage from the Chief of the [English] Squadron if he arrived to await [the galleons] in those seas.”Footnote 45 Anson’s mere presence in Asia kept Spanish and colonial forces in the Philippines in a state of vigilance.Footnote 46
The greatest disruption came on 30 June 1743, when the Centurion captured the returning galleon, Nuestra Señora de Covadonga, which surrendered with a valuable cargo worth more than “a million in sterling.”Footnote 47 A gunner on the galleon estimated the value of her cargo to be over two million pesos.Footnote 48 The loss of the Covadonga devastated the Viceroyalty of New Spain and resulted in a suspension of trans-Pacific trade. The stoppage of trade between Acapulco and Manila had an immediate and devastating effect. By 1744, Viceroy Fuenclara lamented that the cessation of the Manila galleons had left “the Trade of this kingdom and that of those Philippine Islands… in total ruin.”Footnote 49 Despite these economic pressures, Fuenclara sent orders to de la Torre the following year to not send any galleons to Acapulco out of fear of British attacks.Footnote 50 The Manila galleon trade did not resume until 1747.Footnote 51 Anson’s capture of the Manila galleon, while having little impact on Spain itself, profoundly disrupted the Spanish empire’s “metropole” in the Pacific.Footnote 52
The Portuguese Empire: An Inconvenient Ally
Britain did not only have enemies in the South Atlantic and South Sea. England’s oldest ally, Portugal, had a presence in both regions. In his circumnavigation, Anson visited two peripheral parts of the Portuguese empire, leaving an indelible impact on the far south of Brazil and the Portuguese settlement of Macao in the process. Despite being from an ally, his squadron revealed the inadequacies of the defences of Santa Catarina, adding pressure on Portuguese authorities to reinforce their presence on the island. The arrival of HMS Centurion at Macao brought the Anglo-Portuguese alliance into tension with the Portuguese community’s dependence on China. Anson’s capture of the Manila galleon brought Spanish retribution to the waters of Macao, disrupting trade and leading to increased Qing intervention in the Portuguese settlement. Anson may have visited the Portuguese empire as an ally, but he caused inconveniences for two far-flung colonies as he did so.
Anson’s first port of call after crossing the Atlantic was Santa Catarina (St. Catherine’s in English sources), an island off the southeastern coast of Brazil, now part of the city of Florianópolis.Footnote 53 His arrival caused much distress in a strategically important area scarcely under Portuguese control. A royal order of 11 August 1738 commanded the governor of Rio de Janeiro to create a government of Santa Catarina and transfer Brigadier José da Silva Pais to oversee the construction of fortifications there.Footnote 54 Silva Pais arrived in March 1739, and under his governance the island began its transformation into the main base of Portuguese political and military power in the far south of Brazil.Footnote 55 Anson’s arrival at Santa Catarina in late 1740 helped to catalyse this transition.
Anson’s men found the fortifications of Santa Catarina in a sorry state. Philip Saumarez, the lieutenant responsible for making entries in the Centurion’s logbook, commented that the island’s defences did not “seem calculated for resisting ships of war and probably are more designed to prevent privateers from annoying them and to preserve an appearance among the native Indians with whom [the Portuguese] are generally at war.”Footnote 56 Silva Pais was thus distressed at Anson’s “unexpected visit,” which “put me in a [state of] great caution as I did not have certainty whether they were truly English or of their intentions.” He further lamented that he was “unprepared [in terms of] arms and men.”Footnote 57 The brigadier acquiesced in Anson’s request to anchor, admitting to the colonial and naval secretary that he had done so to avoid dispute. Despite the relatively amicable relations between the brigadier and the commodore, Silva Pais nonetheless worried that Anson might have “another project” in the region and that the forces of Santa Catarina were insufficient for its protection.Footnote 58 The arrival of a British squadron exposed the lamentable state of defenses in Santa Catarina, which had newly acquired strategic significance for the Portuguese empire in South America.Footnote 59
Anson told Silva Pais that he had chosen to call at Santa Catarina on account of it being “such an open port.”Footnote 60 Prior to the administrative reforms proclaimed in 1738, the inhabitants of Santa Catarina indeed traded relatively freely with foreign visitors to their island. Lack of Portuguese control as well as frequent visits by foreign ships meant that local inhabitants developed their own social and economic relations with foreigners.Footnote 61 In appointing an official to administer the island, however, the Portuguese administration created an agent through which to exercise political authority and control trade. Anson would be among the first outsiders to experience the effects of this change.Footnote 62
When Anson suggested exchanging goods for provisions, Silva Pais responded that he could not allow the “Countrymen” of Santa Catarina to bring “fruits of the Earth (of which there are very few here)” to the British ships nor could he permit bartering. Silva Pais asserted his authority and insisted that only vendors who had received a “Letra Segura [security letter]” would be permitted to provide supplies for Anson’s squadron. To enforce his orders, he commissioned two canoes to monitor Anson’s ships and report on their activities.Footnote 63 These new procedures proved costly for Anson who complained about the exorbitant prices he had to pay for provisions on the island.Footnote 64
Anson’s visit also made obvious Santa Catarina’s economic underdevelopment. According to Silva Pais, the “poverty of the Land” meant that few inhabitants were capable of “doing business” with Anson’s men.Footnote 65 The commodore’s visit spurred the brigadier to attempt to find solutions. He identified a lack of population as the main problem facing Santa Catarina. In a letter to the king written shortly after Anson’s visit, the brigadier noted that “all these defences and works without people to garrison them were like bodies without a soul.” He suggested that “if some families as well as some recruits could be sent[,] it would be highly useful because [they] would increase the cultivation of those lands that are appropriate not only for [growing] all the fruits of America but also [those of] Europe” as well as providing recruits for the garrison.Footnote 66 In calling for the resettlement of families, Silva Pais was drawing on a trope common across European empires to create households in overseas territories, which Lauren Benton argues was crucial for asserting political power and justifying violence.Footnote 67 Silva Pais’s lobbying for moving households to Santa Catarina led Lisbon to approve granting land on the island to settlers from the restive Azores in 1746.Footnote 68 The first families arrived in Santa Catarina in 1748 and had a transformative effect on the region’s economy.Footnote 69 The shortcomings that the arrival of Anson’s squadron starkly exposed helped to catalyse the transformation of a marginal area of the Portuguese empire in South America into a military, political, and economic centre.
Anson designated “Macao at the entrance of the river Tigris near Canton on the coast of China” as the last rendezvous points for his shipsFootnote 70 HMS Centurion was the only one to arrive there on 12 November 1742. The authorized account of the voyage acknowledged that Macao was “an amicable port, in a civilized country.”Footnote 71 Therin lay the contradiction of Macao when Anson visited. The port was controlled by a Portuguese administration, though Qing officials collected customs duties; the land, however, belonged to the “civilized country” of China, with amicable Portugal paying a ground rent (foro do chão) for its privileges.Footnote 72 The arrival of a 60-gun warship with dubious intentions disrupted this precarious condominium between Portugal and China in Macao.
João Alvares, a Jesuit priest in Macao recorded in his annals that the “Cursario [sic] Ignacio [sic] Anson arrived at Tapia [sic] in 1742.”Footnote 73 That Alvares considered Anson a corsair (i.e., privateer) suggests that not all the Portuguese in Macao, including educated persons, were aware of the identity of the men of the Centurion. Another religious observer, the Franciscan friar, José de Jesus Maria, more accurately assessed the Centurion as an “English warship of the crown of England” but nonetheless doubted that Qing authorities would accept Anson’s presence or his requests for provisions and repairs.Footnote 74 China tolerated the Portuguese presence in Macao partly for the assistance Portuguese ships were expected to give against hostile foreign ships, corsair or otherwise.Footnote 75 The captain-general of Macao, Manuel Pereira Coutinho, took “solace in [the fact that Britain] was a nation very friendly to [that of] the Portuguese with whom [Portugal] had an alliance by which it had nothing to fear.” Governor Pereira Coutinho considered that “it was his obligation to help.” Footnote 76 The presence of a British warship in Macao waters would cause inconveniences for the governor of Macao as he tried to balance the obligations he had to Portugal’s ally with the tenuous Portuguese position in China.
Despite his regard for Anson and Britain, Pereira Coutinho found himself limited in his ability to assist, not only from Chinese pressure but from a lack of resources. The year before Anson’s arrival, the governor complained that the city’s defences were in a state of “utmost misery,” with all types of equipment missing. He also found himself unable to extract resources from the Senado, or municipal council.Footnote 77 The Senado was also short on cash, lacking funds for “necessary expenses, such as the Foro do Chão, payment of the Garrison, Daily expenses, [etc.].”Footnote 78 Many members of the Senado were themselves impecunious, the procurador deciding to provide a sum to members help pay them pay “for the ostentation of their persons, seeing that most of them were poor men and in need, since there was the Excellent Senhor Bishop in the city [and] a Ship from the court of England with its Commander and other Senior Officers” to impress.Footnote 79 The improved dress of the Senado members did not seem to have the intended effect, and Anson instead sought suggestions from the governor on how to obtain provisions from the Chinese in Canton. Pereira Coutinho suggested that the Centurion anchor at Taipa to avoid paying duties while Anson resolved to proceed to Canton to request permission to make purchases at Macao.Footnote 80 As discussed below, Anson’s presence in Canton as a naval officer rather than a merchant caused confusion and misunderstanding. Eventually, Anson came to an agreement with the EIC whereby boats from British East Indiamen carried provisions to the Centurion at Taipa off the coast of Macao.Footnote 81
From Canton, Anson sent a list of stores that the Centurion required and ordered Philip Saumarez to deliver the list to the governor of Macao who then forwarded it to the Qing customs officer there, known as the hoppo. Governor Pereira Coutinho organized a meeting between Saumarez and the Macao hoppo, resulting in a Qing contingent coming to visit the Centurion. In preparation, the crew of the ship “opened all the lower deck ports and ran the guns out.”Footnote 82 Anson noted that his Chinese visitors seemed “greatly surprized at the largeness of the lower deck guns, and the weight and size of the shot.” He “thought this a proper opportunity to convince the Chinese of the prudence of granting him a speedy and ample supply of all he wanted.”Footnote 83 The Centurion received Chinese supplies and labour in adequate amounts from the following month.Footnote 84 British sources attribute the change in Chinese attitudes towards Anson to the impression made by the Centurion’s guns, though the payment of 7-8000 taels to hire carpenters and other workers reported in Spanish sources likely also played a role.Footnote 85
HMS Centurion departed Taipa on 11 April 1743.Footnote 86 She encountered the Covadonga two months later off Cape Espiritu Santo and captured her after an engagement of under two hours.Footnote 87 With his ship damaged and in charge of such a valuable prize, Anson decided to return to China. The Centurion and Covadonga anchored near Macao in July, and the Centurion proceeded upriver towards Canton.Footnote 88 The 492 prisoners captured from the Covadonga “demanded such constant attention” that “their presence constituted a hazard.”Footnote 89 As a result, many of the prisoners were released at Macao. One of the wealthiest Macanese merchants in the city, Manuel Vicente Rosa, paid for the prisoners’ upkeep and arranged for their transportation to Manila after their release.Footnote 90 According to one Spanish observer, Rosa spent 16-17,000 pesos on the prisoners.Footnote 91 The bishop-elect of Nueva Caceres, Isidoro Arévalo, who arrived in Macao for his consecration in September of 1743, also helped to look after “almost three hundred men” of the Covadonga.Footnote 92 After about three months in Macao, the officers and men of the galleon, accompanied by Arévalo, left Macao for Manila.Footnote 93
Hundreds of prisoners were not the only Spanish presence to impact Macao in the wake of Anson’s actions. After receiving news of the capture of the Covadonga, “the whole of the republic” in the Philippines made “distinct representations” for revenge. Officials and “persons of intelligence… with uniform acclamation” decided to arm the galleon, Nuestra Señora del Pilar, and two other ships and send them to Canton to capture the Centurion. When the Spanish squadron arrived “with felicity in view of Canton, and [the] Port of Macao”, however, Anson had already left. He sold the Covadonga to an “inhabitant of Macao” for “four thousand five hundred and some pesos.” The Spanish force bought back the Covadonga for the same price and incorporated her into the squadron.Footnote 94
The Portuguese were less felicitous towards the arrival of the Spanish force. The Jesuit chronicler, João Alvares, recorded that the “Armada from Manila” arrived at Macao on 12 April 1744 and that its presence kept British shipping away during the months of June, July, and August. Alvares likened the Spanish pursuit of British ships to “catch[ing] mosquitos,” an exercise they continued until their departure in October.Footnote 95 Alvares’s coreligionist, José de Jesus Maria, complained that the Spanish warships were “always making war on this city.” The ships were poorly provisioned and placed a strain of “a thousand excesses” on Macao to supply them.Footnote 96 Considering the difficulty Macao faced trying to meet Anson’s demand for the Centurion, the city could scarcely have provided for the larger Spanish force. In addition to economically pressuring the impoverished Portuguese settlement for supplies, the Spanish force also captured the Portuguese sloop S. António arriving from Batavia and took it to Manila.Footnote 97 The Spanish squadron thus disrupted British and Portuguese shipping in its militaristic display and hopes of retaliation.
The presence of Spanish warships in the waters around Macao did not pass unnoticed by Qing officials. Five days after the Spanish squadron arrived at Macao, Qing authorities sent correspondence to the city informing the Portuguese administration that “Their Mandarin” would enter the city. Three hundred soldiers then arrived on the pretext of building a residence for the official. The Jesuits blamed the Spanish presence for increased Qing activity in Macao.Footnote 98 When “news that an army was coming” reached the city, “all Macao mutinied… the inhabitants prepared the many firearms they had… the good and great artillery from the Fortresses were ordered to carry shot; the Spanish commander [was] ordered to offer arms and men.”Footnote 99 The militant preparations seemed to have an effect, and the Qing officials withdrew, “understanding that all the inhabitants [of Macao] were ready with arms” to resist.Footnote 100 The militarization around Macao revealed that the Centurion’s wake rippled through the Qing empire as well.
The Qing Empire: A Barbarian Chief from beyond the Pale
When Anson first arrived in Canton in 1742, he caused misunderstanding by distinguishing himself from the merchants of the East India Company, which represented British interests in China. EIC records commented that “a King’s ship coming” was “without precedent” and that “everybody avoided being concerned in the affair.”Footnote 101 Pascoe Thomas, a teacher accompanying the expedition, recorded that Chinese observers “could not conceive how a Ship, with so much Money in her as they imagined, and were informed we had, could have any other Business but Trading, or Plundering.” They thus gave Anson the “Title of Grand Ladrone Man.”Footnote 102 Anson’s return to China after having captured the Manila galleon merely seemed to confirm this suspicion. Nonetheless, the commodore tried to convince Qing authorities of his royal commission and his duties in Britain’s war with Spain. Half a century before the Macartney embassy, Commodore George Anson arrived in China with an impressive warship and tried to engage in diplomacy with Qing officials. He exposed China, to an unprecedented extent, to European imperial geopolitics. Qing reactions, insisting on a policy of non-intervention in European affairs and undertaking administrative reforms in the region around Macao, challenge the idea of China as increasingly insular from the eighteenth century onwards and reveal ways that Qing statesmen responded to increasing globalization and the spread of European conflicts to East Asia a century before the first Opium War.
As discussed above, Anson’s first visit to China from November 1742 to April 1743 involved interactions with Qing officials, including a visit by customs officials on board the Centurion. The issue caused consternation reaching the highest levels of the Qing bureaucracy. The governor-general of Liangguang, colloquially known in English as the “viceroy,” reported that “in the eleventh month of the previous year [November-December 1742] a cruiser of the country Ying-ji-li [i.e. England] was wrecked in a storm and blown to the seas of Macao. It sent a barbarian chief working in a sampan to the provincial capital, where he begged for assistance and provisions.” Governor-General Ts’ereng (Celeng in Chinese) seems to have understood the threat from a British warship and its commanding officer. He complained that as Anson proceeded towards Canton, “nobody examined or inspected” the commodore.Footnote 103 Considering intelligence regarding the Centurion’s arms that the Macao hoppo would have undoubtedly reported to his superiors, Anson presented a clear threat to security. Ts’ereng accordingly submitted impeachments of two military officers. The Qianlong Emperor approved of the censures and beseeched local officials to take more care in handling “affairs of the maritime frontier.”Footnote 104 These orders would be tested when the “barbarian chief” returned with a Spanish treasure ship, bringing the War of Jenkins’s Ear to China.
Upon his second arrival in China in July 1743, Anson decided to bypass the port of Macao and proceed directly to Canton. According to the authorised account, Anson met various Qing officials along the way and provided “an account of what men, guns, ammunition were on board.” “Custom-house officers” also visited the Centurion, but Anson refused to pay “the Emperor’s duty” or any other customs duties or port charges on account of his ship being warship rather than one coming for trade.Footnote 105 As provincial authorities in Canton “could not guess if [the Centurion] had good or treacherous intentions,” they ordered Dongguan district magistrate, Yin Guangren, to investigate the matter.Footnote 106 While this memorial contains no mention of the Centurion’s armament, Yuan Mei claimed that the governor-general nonetheless expressed concern about the “all-conquering warship that has travelled ten thousand li” to Provincial Commissioner Tuo Yong.Footnote 107 The presence of a Royal Navy ship of the line in Chinese waters clearly caused concern.
Yin Guangren reported that Anson was “a barbarian chief of the country of Ying-ji-li” and that “his country and Lüsong [i.e. Luzon] had long been enemies,” using a traditional Chinese name for the Philippines. During Yin’s interrogation, Anson “insisted that if he had been plundering on the seas, how could there be merchants from various countries taking valuable cargoes [to Canton] with none being attacked? [War] was the reason he only attacked the Luzon warship.”Footnote 108 Anson’s defensiveness suggests that Qing officials still saw him as a pirate. The commodore decided to release some of the officers of the Covadonga at Canton in hopes that their testimony might change Chinese attitudes, which still “considered him rather as a lawless freebooter, than as one commissioned by the State for the revenge of public injuries.”Footnote 109 To further make this distinction, as well as to prove that he was also different from the various merchants trading at Canton, Anson sought an audience with the viceroy as a naval commander and officer of the crown.
One obstacle to Anson’s securing an audience was his refusal to pay any customs duties or any port charges as his was a ship of war. Tuo Yong came up with a resolution, suggesting that the prisoners that Anson had captured from the Covadonga could be presented as “tribute” in lieu of customs duties.Footnote 110 Anson’s men thus “obtained leave from the Vice-Roy for our prisoners to be sent to Macao. Several Chinese boats arrived from Canton which in the morning were sent away with all the Spanish men.”Footnote 111 Qing officials delivered these “Luzon barbarians” to “the charge of the Macao barbarian chief to facilitate their repatriation.”Footnote 112 Anson further gained official favour by having his men help fight a massive fire that broke out in the Canton factories at the end of the year.Footnote 113 In gratitude, a Qing official granted Anson an audience. Anson and his men believed that they were meeting with the “Chuntuck or Viceroy of Canton.”Footnote 114 Edward Page, the EIC supercargo in Canton, claims instead that the figure was the “Chuncoon.”Footnote 115 Recent scholarship suggests that the figure Anson met with was Yin Guangren and, indeed, Chinese sources only record meetings between Anson and Yin in any detail.Footnote 116 Though Anson may never have met with high-ranking provincial officials in Guangdong, his presence and the geopolitics it implied nonetheless catalysed strategic reconsiderations and administrative reform the Canton Delta.
Upon receiving Yin Guangren’s report on the circumstances of Anson’s capture of the Manila galleon, provincial authorities in Guangdong posited that when “barbarians beyond the pale of civilization commit crimes within barbarian borders, the precedent for the Celestial Empire is not to question it.” Considering that the site of the engagement was “in the land of Little Luzon [i.e., the Philippines],” they concluded that Qing officials should “avoid investigating too deeply and order [the barbarians] to return to their countries.”Footnote 117 The initial Qing response to Anson’s bringing the War of Jenkins’s Ear to China was one of non-intervention and isolation, keeping the Qing empire aloof from barbarian affairs in distant lands.
Though Qing officials sought to isolate China from foreign wars, the arrival of the Centurion revealed that barbarian conflicts in battlefields beyond the pale of civilization could nonetheless reach China’s doorstep. The concentration of foreign trade at Canton and the Portuguese presence in Macao made this region particularly susceptible to implication in European wars, as Anson’s visits made frightfully evident. Guangdong authorities insisted China “cannot be unthorough in keeping guard over its access to the sea” in the region. Citing example of “a warship of the barbarian country of Ying-ji-li [that] was able to sail into the inner seas,” the officials realized that naval patrols were insufficient defence.Footnote 118 Provincial officials in Guangdong suggested stationing an officer in the fortress at Qianshan, north of Macao. This official would have responsibility for overseeing maritime defence, inspecting shipping, and managing Chinese and foreigners at Macao. The assistant district magistrate who was currently stationed in Qianshan would be relocated to Macao.Footnote 119 Yin Guangren recorded that, in Anson’s wake, Ts’ereng considered that “only by admonition can we guard against future catastrophe.” The governor-general thus created the post of the Canton Subprefectural Magistrate for Maritime Defence. Ts’ereng appointed Yin, perhaps the Qing official who had the most contact and familiarity with Anson, as the first maritime defence subprefectural magistrate shortly thereafter.Footnote 120 The emperor approved the administrative reform in 1745.Footnote 121
Yin Guangren would meet his first major challenge in the form of the Spanish squadron sent to Macao in retaliation for Anson’s capture of the Covadonga. When “four Luzon warships” anchored in the vicinity of Macao and it became evident to Qing officials that “their intentions are to fight,” Guangdong officials decided that the Spanish presence was “not appropriate to our system [of foreign relations].” Local officials would “not tolerate their deadly enmity and urge[d the Spaniards] to act in good faith and be harmonious with their neighbours.” The governor-general accordingly sent Yin Guangren to deal with the matter.Footnote 122 Yin recalled that his remonstration with the “Luzon chief” led to the Spanish withdrawing “brokenhearted.”Footnote 123 The Canton Subprefectural Magistrate for Maritime Defence, a post created as a response to the naval threat that Anson posed, had enforced the Qing policy of non-intervention and upheld Qing maritime sovereignty in the waters around Macao.
Conclusion
The world around Anson’s voyage warrants more scholarly attention. While Anson’s voyage may not have had substantial strategic importance during the War of Jenkins’s Ear, his presence and activities in South America and the South Sea triggered notice and responses. During his voyage round the world, Commodore George Anson visited parts of the Spanish empire as an adversary, the Portuguese empire as an ally, and the Qing empire as a barbarian chief. Each empire was forced to react to the arrival of British warships off its coasts.
Anson’s actions against the Viceroyalties of Peru and New Spain marked an incursion into the Spanish Pacific that severely disrupted the region’s economy and exposed Spain’s weakness in the region, necessitating immediate and longer-term reforms. The arrival of Anson’s force revealed the tenuousness of the Portuguese presence in distant parts of the empire, catalysing settlement at Santa Catarina and provoking a militant defence of Portugal’s precarious position in Macao. The arrival of a seeming pirate and belligerent barbarian chieftain in Canton drove Qing officials to declare a policy of neutrality in foreign conflicts and undertake the first significant administrative reforms in the region since the restoration of maritime trade after the Manchu conquest.
Having argued that Anson’s circumnavigation had significance for the empires it visited, this article would be remiss if it did not address its significance for the British empire. An assault on the Spain’s colonies, but also one intended to increase British influence in the South Sea, Anson’s voyage is an example of imperial entanglements between the British and Spanish empires so often masked by their antagonism.Footnote 124 Anson’s successes in the Spanish Pacific and resultant reforms mark an example of the transition from Spanish to British imperial practices serving as models, with Spain devoting more attention to naval forces and organization.Footnote 125 Anson’s actions were both a part of and contributor to Britain’s ‘Pacific projects’ and interest in establishing a presence in the North American west to have greater influence on developments in the South Sea in the early eighteenth century.Footnote 126 The voyage marked an important milestone in integrating the Pacific into Anglo-American North America.Footnote 127 As the first substantial naval, as opposed to privateering, expedition into the South Sea Anson’s voyage marked a more systematic British interest in the Pacific. The potential of the use of force to wrest wealthy parts of the region from Spanish control became a distinct possibility, culminating the occupation of Manila during the next major conflict between Spain and Britain.Footnote 128 Anson’s voyage round the world played an important role in increasing British interest in the Pacific and serving as inspiration for future developments in the region.
Anson’s voyage round the world was celebrated in Britain and had important implications for the British empire. It generated very difference responses from the Spanish, Portuguese, and Qing empires. Shifting the focus from the circumnavigation to the world around Anson’s voyage reveals important inter-imperial impacts and significance that Anglo-centric accounts overlook.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express gratitude to the University of Macau for its institutional and financial support for the research that made this article possible. I would also like to thank the reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.
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