ned to look out for islands of ice; and had
to endure such fatigue from the severity of the weather, and
the duty which the nature of the service necessarily brought on
me, that really my life was hardly worth preserving at the
expense of such hardships. Our own ships had several miraculous
escapes, which, in the obscurity of the night and the violence
of the weather, often endangered foundering the sloop.

"Having had the command of the sloop several weeks, I was at
length superseded by her proper captain, who had recovered on
board the Commodore's ship; and I returned to my post.

"During this time, the scurvy made terrible havoc among us,
especially the soldiers, who, being either infirm old men or
raw inexperienced youths, soon lost their spirits, grew sick
and disabled, and from the stench they occasioned, contributed
to infect our seamen.

"This distemper is the consequence of long voyages, and
exhibits itself in such dreadful symptoms as are scarcely
credible, viz. asthma, pains in the limbs and joints, blotches
all over the body, ulcers, idiotism, lunacy, convulsions, and
sudden death. Nor can the physicians, with all their _materia
medica_, find a remedy for it equal to the smell of turf,
grass, or a dish of greens. It is not my province to account
for what is a matter of much doubt and perplexity even to the
most learned, but I could plainly observe that there is a _je
ne sais quoi_ in the frame of the human system, that cannot be
removed without the assistance of certain earthy particles, or,
in plain English, the landsman's proper aliment, and vegetables
and fruits his only physic. For the space of six weeks we
seldom buried less than four or five daily, and at last it
amounted to eight or ten; and I really believe, that, had we
stayed ten days longer at sea, we should have lost the ship for
want of men to navigate her.

"At length we arrived at the island of Juan Fernandez, in the
South Sea, after having had several imminent dangers of
shipwreck on the coast of Chili, off which the nature of our
rendezvous required us to cruise, in hopes of rejoining the
squadron.

"We anchored here on the 16th June 1741, as we subsequently
learned, just ten days after the departure of a Spanish ship of
war, which was sent by