actice hath been no less simple than
efficacious.

[* There were on board, in all, one hundred and eighteen men, including
M. Sparrman, whom they took in at the Cape of Good Hope.]

[** This was a phthisis pulmonalis terminating in a dropsy. Mr. Patten,
surgeon to the Resolution, who mentioned to me this case, observed that
this man began so early to complain of a cough and other consumptive
symptoms, which had never left him, that his lungs must have been
affected before he came on board.]

I would now inquire of the most conversant in the study of bills of
mortality, whether in the most healthful climate, and in the best
condition of life, they have ever found so small a number of deaths in
such a number of men, within that space of time? How great and agreeable
then must our surprise be, after perusing the histories of long
navigations in former days, when so many perished by marine diseases, to
find the air of the sea acquitted of all malignity, and in fine that a
voyage round the world may be undertaken with less danger to health than
a common tour in Europe!

But the better to see the contrast between the old and the present times,
allow me to recal to your memory what you have read of the first voyage
for the establishment of the East-India, Company*. The equipment
consisting of four ships, with four hundred and eighty men, three of
those vessels were so weakened by the scurvy, by the time they had got
only three degrees beyond the Line, that the merchants, who had embarked
on this adventure, were obliged to do duty as common sailors; and there
died in all, at sea, and on shore at Soldania (a place of refreshment on
this side the Cape of Good Hope) one hundred and five men, which was near
a fourth part of their complement. And hath not Sir Richard Hawkins, an
intelligent as well as brave officer, who lived in that age, recorded,
that in twenty years, during which be had used the sea, be could give an
account of ten thousand mariners who bad been consumed by the scurvy
alone**? Yet so far was this author from mistaking the disease, that I
have perused few who have so well described it. If then in those early
times, the infancy I may call them of the commerce and naval power of
England, so many were carried off by that bane of sea-faring people, what
must have been the destruction afterwards, upon the great augmentation of
the fleet and the opening of so many new ports to the trade of Great
Britain, whilst so l