233 



ANSON, LORD. 



ANSON, LORD. 



give up the investitures, but was willing so far to dispense as to give 

 leave to bishops and abbots to do homage to the king for their tempo- 

 ralities. This was in 1106. The king now invited Anselm to England, 

 but the messenger finding him sick, the king himself went over into 

 Normandy, and made him a visit at Bee, where all their differences 

 were adjusted. Anselm, being recovered, embarked for England, and, 

 landing at Dover, was received with extraordinary marks of welcome. 

 From this time little that is remarkable occurred in the life of Auselm, 

 excepting a dispute with Thomas, elected archbishop of York in 1108, 

 who, wishing to disengage himself from dependency upon the see of 

 Canterbury, refused to make the customary profession of canonical 

 obedience. Before the termination of this dispute Anselm died at 

 Canterbury, April 21, 1109, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. 



The works of Archbishop Anselm were published first at Nuremberg, 

 folio, 1491 ; at Cologne in 1573 and 1612 ; at Lyon in 1630 ; by Father 

 Gerberon at Paris in 1675, reprinted in 1721 ; and again at Venice, 

 1744, in two volumes folio. 



Anselm was the first who restrained the marriage of the English 

 clergy, by passing the ecclesiastical canons of the years 1102 and 1108. 

 The canonisation of Anselm took place in the reign of Henry VII. at 

 the instance of Cardinal Morton, then archbishop of Canterbury a 

 singular mark of veneration for one who had been dead so long. 



(Godwin, De Praxulibut ; Biogr. Brit., edit. 1778, vol. i., p. 205; 

 Henry, Hiit. Brit., b. iii., c. 2; Chalmers, Biographical Dictionary, 

 vol. iL, p. 280.) 



ANSON, GEORGE, LORD ANSON, BARON SOBERTON, third 

 son of William Ansoo, Esq., of Shu!;borough in Staffordshire, was born 

 at the manor of Shugborough on the 23rd of April, 1697. The history 

 of his boyish days is a blank. He entered the navy at an early age, as 

 his name appears on the books of the Ruby in January, 1712. On the 

 9th of May, 1716, he was made second lieutenant of the Hampshire 

 ship of war. From this period till the year 1724 George Anson saw a 

 good deal of service in various seas, and advanced in rank with the 

 ft[ii;ible, and not tedious, progress of a respectable officer who has good 

 connections to back him. In 1718 he was promoted to be master and 

 commander of the Weazel sloop, and in 1724 he was raised to the rank 

 of post-captain, and the command of the Scarborough man-of-war. 



During the greater part of the period which intervened between 1724 

 and 1735, Captain Anson was placed on the Carolina station. In his 

 various employments he appears to have acted with an ability and 

 discretion that gave general satisfaction. He acquired a considerable 

 property in South Carolina, on which he erected a town, Ansouburgh, 

 which subsequently gave name to a county. The high opinion enter- 

 tained at the Admiralty of Anson's prudence, spirit, and seamanship, 

 occasioned hia being recalled in 1739, the year in which war waa 

 declared between Great Britain and Spain. The original intention of 

 government was to dispatch one squadron under Anson by way of the 

 Kast Indies, and another of equal force under Cornwall by way of Cape 

 Horn, to rendezvous at Manilla and await further orders, after having 

 done the utmost possible damage to the trade and settlements of the 

 cnetny on their respective routes. The execution of this scheme was 

 deferred, and ultimately fell to the ground. But the part of the plan 

 intended to have been intrusted to Cornwall was still to be carried 

 into effect, and Alison and his squadron were to be employed on that 

 service. 



The war of 1739 was forced upon Walpole by the mercantile inte- 

 rests, who were eager to share in the riches which they imagined Spain 

 derived from her possessions in the South Sea. The expedition 

 intrusted to Angon waa of a motley character : viewed in one light it 

 was little better than a buccaneering expedition against the Spanish 

 trad-) and settlements ; viewed in another, it was the first step in that 

 brilliant career of maritime dUcovery in which Cook, Vancouver, and 

 have earned such laurels, and of busy colonisation to which their 

 discoveries have ultimately led. Anson entered upon this charge in 

 a spirit worthy of its fairer features. Before sailing he took care to 

 furnish himself with the best printed and manuscript accounts he 

 could procure of the Spanish settlements on the coasts of Chili, Peru, 

 and Mexico. But the persons upon whom devolved the charge of fitting 

 out the expedition appear to have been animated solely by the avaricious 

 disposition which had wrung its undertaking from a reluctant minister. 



Several of the vessels were inadequate to the voyage ; they were 

 iciently manned ; and the troops sent oil board were worn-out pen- 

 sioners from Chelsea. The proper season was allowed to elapse before 

 ;he fleet set sail. And what most of all revealed the character of 

 those with whom the expedition originated, two persons, denominated 

 agent victuallers, were sent along with it. They obtained permission 

 ;o carry out goods to the value of 15,000?. on board the squadron to 

 barter for supplies, and this mixing up of private interests with the 

 jeneral object of the expedition became subsequently the occasion of 

 much suffering and loss of life. 



The expedition sailed from St. Helen's on the 18th of September, 

 1740. Ausou came to anchor at Spithead, after sailing round the 

 world and encountering numberless hardships, on the 15th of June, 

 1744. This is not the place to give a detailed account of the adven- 

 tures of the voyage. In doubling Cape Horn his ship (the Centurion) 

 was separated from the fleet, part of which never rejoined him. By 

 the time he reached Tinian his squadron was reduced to a single ship. 

 His crew and soldiers had been picked up at random, instead of being 

 selected with care for a voyage capable of trying the best constitutions. 

 His ship was so deeply laden, iu part with the merchandise of the 

 victualling agents, as, in the words of Sir John Pringle, " not to admit 

 of opening the gun-ports, except in the calmest weather, for the benefit 

 of air." The misfortunes, increased by misarrangement against which 

 Anson had in vain remonstrated, paralysed the expedition for any 

 achievement of national importance ; but afforded the commander an 

 opportunity of showing what a powerful character can accomplish when 

 thrown upon its own resources. 



Before quitting St. Catherine's (Brazil), he gave directions to the 

 other captains that would have rendered it unnecessary to abandon 

 the undertaking even if he had been lost. When staying at Juan. 

 Fernandez, after the passage of Cape Horn, he set his officers the 

 example of labouring with his own hands, and obliged them, without 

 distinction of rank, to assist in carrying the sick on shore. His assiduity 

 in sowing vegetables and planting fruit-trees on the island for the better 

 accommodation of his countrymen who might afterwards touch there, 

 looks like a renewal of the taste which bad made him a coloniser in 

 South Carolina. He had every coast and road he visited surveyed 

 according to his directions and under his eye, and he collected all the 

 Spanish charts and journals he could procure. With his weak equip- 

 ment he took Paita and a number of ships, among others the famous 

 Manilla galleon. His conduct towards his prisoners, and especially 

 the females, waa humane and delicate as that of a hero of romance. 

 When his ship drifted out to sea at Tinian, leaving himself with many 

 officers and part of the crew on the shore, and when iu the moment 

 of victory the Centurion took fire near the powder-room, he displayed 

 the most imperturbable serenity and fertility of resource. At Macao 

 he proved himself an able uegociator. In short, his conduct was such 

 that in perusing the narrative of his voyage, the fact of its being a 

 total failure in so far as the objects contemplated iu fitting it out were 

 concerned, is entirely forgotten ; the reader feels only the personal 

 triumph of a man over difficulties and dangers besetting him on all 

 sides, the victory gained by his conduct over the misapprehension of 

 the English character entertained by the Spanish Americans, and the 

 re-discovery of the Pacific Ocean to the English public. In so far as 

 the hero of this adventurous voyage was concerned, it ended most 

 successfully. He conquered a fortune on board the galleon, and suc- 

 ceeded in carrying his acquisitions safely, under the shelter of a fog, 

 through the midst of a French fleet cruising in the channel at his 

 return. 



A few days after Anson's return he was created rear-admiral of the Blr.c, 

 and in a short time he was elected member of parliament for Heydon in 

 Yorkshire. When the Duke of Bedford was appointed first lord of the 

 Admiralty (27th of December, 1744), Anson was made one of the com- 

 missioners of the Admiralty. In June 1749 he was rnude vice-admiral, 

 also a civil appointment. On the 12th of June 1751 he was made first 

 commissioner in the room of Lord Sandwich, and he retained the office 

 till the change of administration in November, 1756. While a member 

 of the Admiralty he made two naval campaigns. He commanded the 

 channel fleet during the winter of 1746-47. A plan which he had formed 

 for attacking the French fleet under Admiral d'Anville was frustrated 

 through the intelligence conveyed to the enemy of Anaou's station and 

 intention by the master of a Dutch vessel ; but he had an opportunity 

 of displaying on this harassing service the same patience and perse- 

 verance which had rendered his voyage round the world illustrious. 

 In the spring of 1747 he was again at sea, and falling iu with a French 

 fleet bound to the Indies with merchandise, treasure, and warlike 

 stores, off Cape Finisterre, obtained a brilliant victory on the 3rd of 

 May. Six French ships of war carrying 2719 men and 340 guns, and 

 three East Indiamen fitted out as men-of-war, carrying 400 men and 

 80 guns, were captured. Iu reward for this severe blow to the naval 

 power of France, Anson was created a peer iu the month of June 

 under the title of Lord Anson, baron of Soberton, ill the county of 

 Southampton. In Iris administrative capacity Auson was of still more 

 use to the service he belonged to than at sea. He carried into the 

 discharge of his official duties the same provident and scientific spirit 

 with which he had prepared himself for the expedition round Cape 

 Horn. In common with his colleagues, lie was loudly accused of 

 having been the main cause of Byng's discomfiture off Minorca. He 



