cumstance of
the crew's good health on arriving at Batavia. So far the precautions
used for their welfare had been found very efficacious.--E.]

We repaired immediately to the house of Mr Leith, the only Englishman of
any credit who was resident at this place; he received us with great
politeness, and engaged us to dinner: To this gentleman we applied for
instructions how to provide ourselves with lodgings and necessaries
while we should stay ashore, and he told us that there was a hotel, or
kind of inn, kept by the order of government, where all merchants and
strangers were obliged to reside, paying half per cent, upon the value
of their goods for warehouse room, which the master of the house was
obliged to provide; but that as we came in a king's ship, we should be
at liberty to live where we pleased, upon asking the governor's
permission, which would be granted of course. He said that it would be
cheaper for us to take a house in the town, and bring our own servants
ashore, if we had any body upon whom we could depend to buy in our
provisions; but as this was not the case, having no person among us who
could speak the Malay language, our gentlemen determined to go to the
hotel. At the hotel, therefore, beds were immediately hired, and word
was sent that we should sleep there at night.

At five o'clock in the afternoon I was introduced to the
governor-general, who received me very courteously; he told me that I
should have every thing I wanted, and that in the morning my request
should be laid before the council, which I was desired to attend.

About nine o'clock we had a dreadful storm of thunder, lightning, and
rain, during which the main-mast of one of the Dutch East Indiamen was
split, and carried away by the deck; the main-top-mast and
top-gallant-mast were shivered to pieces; she had an iron spindle at the
main-top-mast-head, which probably directed the stroke. This ship lay
not more than the distance of two cables' length from ours, and in all
probability we should have shared the same fate, but for the electrical
chain which we had but just got up, and which conducted the lightning
over the side of the ship; but though we escaped the lightning, the
explosion shook us like an earthquake, the chain at the same time
appearing like a line of fire: A centinel was in the action of charging
his piece, and the shock forced the musket out of his hand, and broke
the rammer-rod. Upon this occasion I cannot but earnestl