George Anson's Voyage Around The World - Consequences

Consequences

Anson was compared with Francis Drake and was promoted accordingly, reaching First Lord of the Admiralty in 1751 but he assisted the careers of many of the officers that sailed with him. Immediately after his return though, Anson had promoted Philip Saumarez and Peircy Brett but after the Admiralty refused to confirm Brett, Anson declined his own promotion.

As a direct result of the ambiguous legal situation after the wreck of the Wager, the rules were changed to give Captains continuing authority over their crew and the crew would continue to be paid. Similarly, after Anson had felt a need to impress the mandarins that came aboard and to distinguish his crew from those of merchant vessels, naval uniforms were introduced. Previously, the officers and seamen made their own arrangements.

The return of Anson's expedition raised interest in the Pacific as an object of British trade and imperial power but given the treacherous conditions around Cape Horn and the Spanish hold of South America, there was hope that an alternative route to the Pacific might be found through a North-west passage over the top of North America. An expedition led by Middleton had been mounted while Anson was away but has been blocked by ice. The government offered £20,000 to anyone that could find a navigable route but a private expedition by Moor and Smith in 1746-47 likewise returned empty-handed.

Anson pressed for follow-up expeditions of discovery after peace was reached with Spain but relations between the countries were still delicate and the voyages were canceled for fear of provoking a wider dispute.

Although several private journals of the voyage had been published, the official version of events, A Voyage Around the World by George Anson was eagerly awaited (abridged version). As well as detailing the adventures of the expedition, it contained a huge amount of useful information for future navigators and with 42 detailed charts and engravings, most based on drawings by Piercy Brett, it laid the basis for later scientific and survey expeditions by Captain Cook and others. Spanish charts seized from the Covadonga added many islands to the British charts of the Pacific, and those in the Western North Pacific became known as the Anson Archipelago.

Given the horrific losses to scurvy, it is surprising that one thing that did not happen was an official investigation into its cause and possible cures. That it could be cured was obvious from the rapid improvements shown by Anson's men after reaching both Juan Fernandez and Tinian. Unofficially, James Lind made his own investigations on the Salisbury in 1747. Working with twelve victims he separated them into six pairs and tried something different on each pair. The pair that received oranges and lemons showed dramatic positive change but it would be another 50 years before Lind's recommendations were accepted.

The final words from the authorized account, "Thus was this expedition finished, when it had lasted three years and nine months, after having, by its event, strongly evinced this important truth: That though prudence, intrepidity, and perseverance united are not exempted from the blows of adverse fortune, yet in a long series of transactions they usually rise superior to its power, and in the end rarely fail of proving successful."

It also trained some of the finest naval commanders of the generation, including Augustus Keppel, John Byron and John Campbell.

The last known survivor of those that had accompanied Lord Anson was Joseph Allen, who had been a surgeon on the trip, and later went on to become Master of Dulwich College. He died on 10 January 1796 in his eighty third year.