At length, on the 28th June, 1740, the Duke of Newcastle, principal secretary of state, delivered to him his majesty’s instructions, dated on the 31st of January preceding, with an additional instruction from the lords justices, dated 19th June.  On the receipt of these, Mr Anson immediately repaired to Spithead, with a resolution to sail with the first fair wind, flattering himself that all his difficulties were now at an end:  for though he knew by the muster that his squadron wanted three hundred men of their complement, a deficiency he had not, with all his assiduity, been able to get supplied, yet as Sir Charles Wager had informed him that an order from the board of Admiralty was sent to Sir John Norris to spare him the numbers which he wanted; he doubted not of its being complied with.  But, on his arrival at Portsmouth, he found himself greatly mistaken and disappointed in this persuasion:  for, on application, Sir John Norris told him he could spare him none, as he wanted men for his own fleet.  This occasioned an inevitable and very considerable delay, and it was the end of July before this deficiency was by any means supplied, and all that was then done was extremely short of his necessities and expectation; for Admiral Balchen, who succeeded to the command at Spithead, after Sir John Norris had sailed to the westward, instead of three hundred sailors which Mr Anson wanted of his complement, ordered on board the squadron an hundred and seventy men only, of which thirty-two were from the hospital and sick-quarters, thirty-seven men from the Salisbury, with three officers and ninety-eight marines of Colonel Lowther’s regiment; and these were all that were ever granted to make up the forementioned deficiency.

But the commodore’s mortification did not end here.  It has been already observed, that it was at first intended that Colonel Bland’s regiment, and three independent companies of an hundred men each, should embark as land-forces on board the squadron.  But this disposition was now changed; and all the land-forces that were to be allowed were five hundred invalids, to be collected from the out-pensioners of Chelsea College.  As these consisted of soldiers, who, from their age, wounds, and other circumstances, were incapable of serving in marching regiments, Mr Anson was much chagrined at having such a decrepid detachment allotted to him; for he was fully persuaded that the greatest part of them would perish long before they could arrive at the scene of action, since the delays he had already experienced necessarily confined his passage round Cape Horn to the most rigorous season of the year.  Sir Charles Wager joined in opinion with the commodore, that invalids were by no means proper for this service, and strenuously solicited to have them, exchanged.  But he was told, that persons who were considered better judges of soldiers than he or Mr Anson, thought them the properest men that could be employed on this occasion; and, upon