It was this incident that inspired Cowper's 'Castaway,' and called forth
the touching verse given below--a verse so eloquent in its testimony to
that gentler side of Anson's nature, which won for him the affection and
regard not only of his own sailors, but even of his Spanish prisoners.

Of this poor sailor, and of the page in the ship's books that bore his
name, Cowper wrote:

No poet wept him; but the page
Of narrative sincere,
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalise the dead.

From hence we had an interval of three or four days less tempestuous than
usual, but accompanied with a thick fog, in which we were obliged to fire
guns almost every half-hour to keep our squadron together.

On the first of April the weather returned again to its customary bias,
the sky looked dark and gloomy, and the wind began to freshen and to blow
in squalls; however, it was not yet so boisterous as to prevent our
carrying our topsails close reefed; but its appearance was such as
plainly prognosticated that a still severer tempest was at hand. And
accordingly, on the 3rd of April, there came on a storm which both in its
violence and continuation (for it lasted three days) exceeded all that we
had hitherto encountered. In its first onset we received a furious shock
from the sea which broke upon our larboard quarter, where it stove in the
quarter gallery, and rushed into the ship like a deluge; our rigging,
too, suffered extremely, so that to ease the stress upon the masts and