Towards the latter end of April, the unloading of our three prizes, our wooding and watering, and, in short, all our proposed employments at the harbour of Chequetan were completed:  So that, on the 27th of April, the Tryal’s prize, the Carmelo, and the Carmin, all which we intended to destroy, were towed on shore and scuttled, and a quantity of combustible materials were distributed in their upper works; and the next morning the Centurion and the Gloucester weighed anchor, but as there was but little wind, and that not in their favour, they were obliged to warp out of the harbour.  When they had reached the offing, one of the boats was dispatched back again to set fire to our prize, which was accordingly executed.  And a canoe was left fixed to a grapnel in the middle of the harbour, with a bottle in it well corked, inclosing a letter to Mr Hughes, who commanded the cutter, which was ordered to cruise before the port of Acapulco, when we came off that station.  And on this occasion I must mention more particularly than I have yet done, the views of the commodore in leaving the cutter before that port.

When we were necessitated to make for Chequetan to take in our water, Mr Anson considered that our being in that harbour would soon be known at Acapulco; and therefore he hoped, that on the intelligence of our being employed in port, the galleon might put to sea, especially as Chequetan is so very remote from the course generally steered by the galleon:  He therefore ordered the cutter to cruise twenty-four days off the port of Acapulco, and her commander was directed, on perceiving the galleon under sail, to make the best of his way to the commodore at Chequetan.  As the Centurion was doubtless a much better sailer than the galleon, Mr Anson in this case resolved to have got to sea as soon as possible, and to have pursued the galleon across the Pacific Ocean:  And supposing he should not have met with her in his passage, (which considering that he would have kept nearly the same parallel, was not very improbable,) yet he was certain of arriving off Cape Espiritu Santo, on the island of Samal, before her; and that being the first land she makes on her return to the Philippines, we could not have failed to have fallen in with her, by cruising a few days in that station.  But the viceroy of Mexico ruined this project by keeping the galleon in the port of Acapulco all that year.

The letter left in the canoe for Mr Hughes, the commander of the cutter, the time of whose return was now considerably elapsed, directed him to go back immediately to his former station before Acapulco, where he would find Mr Anson, who resolved to cruise for him there for a certain number of days; after which it was added, that the commodore would return to the southward to join the rest of the squadron.  This last article was inserted to deceive the Spaniards, if they got possession of the canoe, (as we afterwards learnt they did) but could not impose on Mr Hughes, who well knew that the commodore had no squadron to join, nor any intention of steering back to Peru.