XXX 



I'REFACE. 



South Sea, in the letter to the Secretary of 

 the navy, giving a detail of Captain Porter's 

 operations, and the capture of the Essex. This 

 detail being in substance nearly the same as 

 that in the first edition of this Journal, the latter has 

 been omitted in the present, as it was thought 

 an unnecessary repetition. From this letter the 

 reader will judge of the damage done by the Essex 

 in her cruise. 



With regard to the operations of Anson's fleets 

 to which Captain Porter took the freedom to com- 

 pare his own, it will not be necessary to follow his 

 lordship through the early chapters of his voyage ; 

 to recall the reader's attention to the dangers of his 

 passage round Cape Horn, his stay at Juan Fer- 

 nandez, his constant dread of the enemy, nor his 

 brilHant capture of eight unarmed ships; and 

 above all, his threats and cruelties to his prisoners. 

 To mark the high character for " honour and 

 generosity," which is so much insisted on by the 

 Reviewer, it will only be necessary to extract some 

 of the particulars of his lordship's attack on Payta, 

 a defenceless Spanish town in South America. 

 We shall first give some extracts from the English 

 account of the voyage, drawn up by Mr. Walter, 

 chaplain to his lordship, and then the account of 

 Don Juan de Ulloa, a Spanish navigator, a man 

 of undoubted veracity. 



The town of Payta was attacked in the nightj 

 and taken without the loss of a man ; " but the shot 

 passed extremely near one of the boats, whistling 

 just over the heads of the crew." This was the 

 greatest danger they encountered. The town was, 

 however, plundered and set fire to, because the 

 Governor, who had made his escape, would not 

 deliver himself up, and ransom the place. " We 

 had finished," says chaplain Walter, " sending the 



