revisiting our native shores gave us spirits to encounter this tedious
navigation in so weak and comfortless a condition. We were now so
weakly manned, that we could scarcely have been able to navigate our
vessel without the assistance of the negroes, not amounting now
to thirty whites, so much had our crew been reduced by untoward
accidents.

We discovered an island on the 21st, 110 leagues W.S.W. from Cape St
Lucas,[1] but as the wind blew fresh, I could not get nearer than two
leagues, and did not think proper to lose time in laying-to in the
night. It seemed seven or eight leagues in circumference, having a
large bay on its S.W. side, in the middle of which was a high rock. My
people named this Shelvocke's island. From hence we shelved, down to
the latitude of 13° N. but were stopped two or three days by westerly
winds, which we did not expect in this sea, especially as being
now five or six hundred leagues from the land. The trade-wind again
returning, we kept in the parallel of 13° N. except when we judged
that we were near the shoals of St Bartholomew, and then haled a
degree more to the north, and so continued for sixty or seventy
leagues. A fortnight after leaving California, my people, who had
hitherto enjoyed uninterrupted health, began to be afflicted with
sickness, particularly affecting their stomachs, owing doubtless to
the great quantities of sweetmeats they were continually devouring,
and also to oar common food, chiefly composed of puddings made of
coarse flour and sweetmeats, mixed up with sea-water, together with
jerked beef, most of which was destroyed by ants, cockroaches, and
other vermin. We could not afford to boil the kettle once in the whole
passage with fresh water, so that the crew became reduced to a
very melancholy state by scurvy and other distempers. The sickness
increased upon us every day, so that we once buried two in one day,