Satisfied therefore that we were undiscovered, and that the day was fixed for the departure of the galeon from Acapulco, we made all necessary preparations, and waited with the utmost impatience for the important moment. As it was the 19th of February when the barge returned and brought us our intelligence, and the galeon was not to sail till the 3d of March, the commodore resolved to continue the greatest part of the intermediate time on his present station, to the westward of Acapulco, conceiving that in this situation there would be less danger of his being seen from the shore, which was the only circumstance that could deprive us of the immense treasure on which we had at present so eagerly fixed our thoughts. During this interval we were employed in scrubbing and cleansing our ships bottoms, in bringing them into their most advantageous trim, and in regulating the orders, signals, and positions, to be observed, when we should arrive off Acapulco, and the time appointed for the departure of the galeon should draw nigh.
It was on the first of March we made the high lands, usually called the paps over Acapulco, and got with all possible expedition into the situation prescribed by the commodore's orders. The distribution of our squadron on this occasion, both for the intercepting the galeon, and for avoiding a discovery from the shore, was so very judicious that it well merits to be distinctly described. The order of it was thus: the _Centurion_ brought the paps over the harbour to bear N.N.E. at fifteen leagues distance, which was a sufficient offing to prevent our being seen by the enemy. To the westward of the _Centurion_ there was stationed the _Carmelo_, and to the eastward the _Tryal's_ prize, the _Gloucester_, and the _Carmin_; these were all ranged in a circular line, and each ship was three leagues distant from the next, so that the _Carmelo_ and the _Carmin_, which were the two extremes, were twelve leagues removed from each other, and as the galeon { 232} could, without doubt, be discerned at six leagues distance from either extremity, the whole sweep of our squadron, within which nothing could pass undiscovered, was at least twenty-four leagues in extent; and yet we were so connected by our signals as to be easily and speedily informed of what was seen in any part of the line. To render this disposition still more compleat, and to prevent even the possibility of the galeon's escaping us in the night, the two cutters belonging to the _Centurion_ and the _Gloucester_ were both manned and sent in shore, and commanded to lie all day at the distance of four or five leagues from the entrance of the port, where, by reason of their smallness, they could not possibly be discovered, but in the night they were directed to stand nearer to the harbour's mouth, and as the light of the morning approached to come back again to their day-posts. When the cutters should first discern the Manila ship, one of them was to return to the squadron, and to make a signal, whether the galeon stood to the eastward or to the westward; whilst the other was to follow the galeon at a distance, and if it grew dark, to direct the squadron in their chace, by shewing false fires.