Fragments from the same manuscript as Voltaire Foundation MS 16. The leaves are paginated by Voltaire and constitute p.5-8, and 11-12. P.9-10 are missing. Voltaire writes of an attack on a Spanish settlement made by 50 English soldiers in a rowboat during the night under the command of Admirable Anson, remarking that this sudden surprise, and the confusion and disorder that the darkness redoubles, multiplies and increases the danger. The governor, garrison, and inhabitants fled, and the governor went inland to collect 300 cavalry and the surrounding militia. The English took the treasures they could find and transported them peacefully for three days. The slaves who had not fled helped to remove the wealth of their former masters. The governor was not bold or prudent enough to return to the city and either fight or form a treaty with the victors. The English then went to Panama and greatly advanced before Acapulco, taking great swathes of the centre of Spanish domination. The Spanish stalled Admiral Anson’s forces with a larger fleet and artillery under the command of Don Joseph Pizarro, but the Spanish forces suffered from scurvy and hunger after provisions expected from Buenos Aires did not arrive. The commander eventually returned to Spain in 1746 with fewer than 100 of the 2,700 men he had left with. Pizarro’s misfortunes, Voltaire writes, left Admiral Anson free in the South Sea, but Anson’s forces too had suffered from scurvy. Anson therefore set his sights on taking a large Mexican galleon sent every year to Manilla, which Anson proceeded to use to sail for Africa.