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.

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“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.