Being thus prepared for the reception of the galleon, we expected, with the utmost impatience, the so-often-mentioned third of March, the day fixed for her departure.  And on that day we were all of us most eagerly engaged in looking out towards Acapulco; and we were so strangely prepossessed with the certainty of our intelligence, and with an assurance of her coming out of port, that some or other of us were constantly imagining they discovered one of our cutters returning with a signal.  But, to our extreme vexation, both this day and the succeeding night passed without any news of the galleon:  However, we did not yet despair, but were all heartily disposed to flatter ourselves, that some unforeseen accident had intervened, which might have put off her departure for a few days; and suggestions of this kind occurred in plenty, as we knew that the time fixed by the viceroy for her sailing was often prolonged on the petition of the merchants of Mexico.  Thus we kept up our hopes, and did not abate of our vigilance; and as the 7th of March was Sunday the beginning of Passion-week, which is observed by the Papists with great strictness, and a total cessation from all kinds of labour, so that no ship is permitted to stir out of port during the whole week, this quieted our apprehensions for some days, and disposed us not to expect the galleon till the week following.  On the Friday in this week our cutters returned to us, the officers being very confident that the galleon was still in port, and that she could not possibly have come out but they must have seen her.  On the Monday morning succeeding Passion-week, that is, on the 15th of March, the cutters were again dispatched to their old station, and our hopes were once more indulged in as sanguine prepossessions as before; but in a week’s time our eagerness was greatly abated, and a general dejection and despondency took place.  It is true, there were some few amongst us who still kept up their spirits, and were very ingenious in finding out reasons to satisfy themselves, that the disappointment had been occasioned by a casual delay of the galleon, which a few days would remove, and not by a total suspension of her departure for the whole season:  But these speculations were not relished by the generality of our people; for they were persuaded that the enemy had, by some accident, discovered our being upon the coast, and had therefore laid an embargo on the galleon till the next year.  And indeed this persuasion was but too well founded; for we afterwards learnt, that our barge, when sent on the discovery of the port of Acapulco, had been seen from the shore; and that this circumstance (no embarkations but canoes ever frequenting that coast) was to them a sufficient proof of the neighbourhood of our squadron; on which they stopped the galleon till the succeeding year.

The commodore himself, though he declared not his opinion, was yet in his own thoughts very apprehensive that we were discovered, and that the departure of the galleon was put off; and he had, in consequence of this opinion, formed a plan for possessing himself of Acapulco; for he had no doubt that the treasure remained in the town, though the orders for dispatching the galleon were countermanded.[3]