coa-nuts, which she procured in a fine little harbour,
about four leagues W.N.W. from the station we were in. The officer on
board reported that the trees grew where he had gathered the fruit in
great plenty; but as he had observed that several of them were marked,
and that there were many huts of the natives near them; I did not think
it proper that the boat should return: But the refreshment which now
offered was of such importance to the sick, that I determined to go into
the harbour with the ship, and place her so as to protect the men who
should be employed to fell the trees, and cut off the cabbages and the
fruit. We sailed from English Cove with the land-breeze early in the
morning, and in the evening secured the ship a-breast of the grove,
where the cocoa-nuts had been gathered, and at very little distance from
the shore. Here we procured above a thousand cocoa-nuts, and as many of
the cabbages as we could use while they were good, and I would have
staid long enough to have given my people all the refreshments they
wanted, but the season of the year made the shortest delay dangerous.
There was too much reason to suppose that the lives of all on board
depended upon our getting to Batavia while the monsoon continued to
blow from the eastward; there was indeed time enough for any other ship
to have gone three times the distance, but I knew it was scarcely
sufficient for the Swallow in her present condition: And that if we
should be obliged to continue here another season, it would probably
become impossible to navigate her at all, especially as she had but a
single sheathing, and her bottom was not filled with nails, so that the
worms would have eaten through it; besides that our provision would long
before that time have been totally exhausted. I therefore weighed anchor
and quitted this station, which was much the best that had been our lot
during the whole run from the Strait of Magellan, on the 9th in the
morning, at break of day, with a light breeze from the land.

[Footnote 59: The following quotation from the account of Bougainville's
voyage may interest the reader:--"A sailor, belonging to my barge, being
in search of shells, found buried in the sand, a piece of a plate of
lead, on which we read these remains of English words, HOR'D HERE ICK
MAJESTY. There yet remained the mark of the nails, with which they had
fastened this inscription, that did not seem to be of any ancient date.
The savages had, doubtless