quite decayed, and there was no
place in her where a man could be sheltered from the weather. The few
people who belonged to her were in as bad a state as their vessel, being
quite broken and worn down, and expecting to be drowned as soon as the
monsoon should set in.

Among other necessaries, we were in want of an anchor, having lost two,
and of three-inch rope for rounding the cables; but the officers whom I
had sent to procure these articles, reported, that the price which had
been demanded for them was so exorbitant, that they had not agreed to
give it. On Saturday the 5th, therefore, I went on shore myself, for the
first time, and visited the different storehouses and arsenals, but
found it impossible to make a better bargain than my officers. I
suspected that the dealers took advantage of our apparent necessity, and
supposing that we could not sail without what we had offered to
purchase, determined to extort from us more than four times its value. I
was, however, resolved to make any shift rather than submit to what I
thought a shameful imposition, and therefore told them that I should
certainly sail on the next Tuesday; that if they would agree to my terms
in the mean time, I would take the things I had treated for; if not,
that I would sail without them.

Soon after I returned on board, I received a petition from the
warrant-officers of the Falmouth, representing, that there was nothing
for them to look after: That the gunner had been long dead, and his
stores spoiled, particularly the powder, which, by order of the Dutch,
had been thrown into the sea: That the boatswain, by vexation and
distress, had lost his senses, and was then a deplorable object in a
Dutch hospital: That all his stores had been long spoiled and rotten,
the roof of the storehouse having fallen in during a wet monsoon, and
left them exposed many months, all endeavours to procure another place
to put them in being ineffectual: That the carpenter was in a dying
condition, and the cook a wounded cripple. For these reasons they
requested that I would take them home, or at least dismiss them from
their charge. It was with the greatest regret and compassion that I told
these unhappy people it was not in my power to relieve them, and that as
they had received charge of stores, they must wait orders from home.
They replied, that they had never received a single order from England
since they had been left here, and earnestly entreated that I would