ulness undergo in the service of their country, nor any
order that I could give them which they would not implicitly and
zealously obey.[11]

[Footnote 11: "We had all the reason possible to believe that we were
bound to the East Indies, and that we should now steer to the Cape of
Good Hope, the scheme being so well concerted by our commodore, as even
to deceive Lord Clive, who pressed him with great importunity to allow
him to take his passage in the Dolphin, we being in much greater
readiness for sea than the Kent; but to this the commodore could not
consent; but flattered his lordship with the hopes of his taking him on
board on their meeting at the Cape."]

We continued our course till Monday the 20th, having frequently hard
gales with sudden gusts, which obliged us to strike our
top-gallant-masts, and get up our stumps; but this day it blew a storm,
with a terrible sea, and the ship laboured so much, that, to ease her, I
ordered the two foremost and two aftermost guns to be thrown overboard:
The gale continued with nearly equal violence all the rest of the day,
and all night, so that we were obliged to lie-to under a double-reefed
main-sail; but in the morning, it being more moderate, and veering from
N.W. to S. by W. we made sail again, and stood to the westward. We were
now in latitude 35 deg.50'S. and found the weather as cold as it is at the
same season in England, although the month of November here is a spring
month, answering to our May, and we were near twenty degrees neater the
Line: To us, who within little more than a week had suffered intolerable
heat, this change was most severely felt: And the men who, supposing
they were to continue in a hot climate during the whole voyage, had
contrived to sell not only all their warm clothes, but their bedding, at
the different ports where we had touched, now applied in great distress
for slops, and were all furnished for the climate.

On Friday the 2d of November, after administering the proper oaths to
the lieutenants of both ships, I delivered them their commissions; for
till this time they acted only under verbal orders from me, and expected
to receive their commissions in India, whither they imagined we were
bound. We now began to see a great number of birds about the ship, many
of them very large, of which some were brown and white, and some black:
There were among them large flocks of pintadoes, which are somewhat
larger than a pigeon, and spotted with bla