during this vexatious voyage; wherein the ignorance, and obstinacy
withal, of some under me, occasioned me a great deal of trouble: though
they found all along, and were often forced to acknowledge it, that I was
seldom out in my conjectures when I told them usually beforehand what
winds, etc. we should meet with at such or such particular places we
should come at.

Pernambuco was the port that I designed for at my first setting out from
St. Jago; it being a place most proper for my purpose, by reason of its
situation, lying near the extremity of Cape St. Augustine, the
easternmost promontory of Brazil; by which means it not only enjoys the
greater benefit of the seabreezes, and is consequently more healthy than
other places to the southward, but is withal less subject to the
southerly coasting tradewinds that blow half the year on this shore;
which were now drawing on, and might be troublesome to me: so that I
might both hope to reach soonest Pernambuco as most directly and nearest
in my run; and might thence also more easily get away to the southward
than from Bahia de todos los Santos or Rio de Janeiro.

But notwithstanding these advantages I proposed to myself in going to
Pernambuco I was soon put by that design through the refractoriness of
some under me, and the discontents and backwardness of some of my men.
For the calms and shiftings of winds which I met with, as I was to
expect, in crossing the Line, made them who were unacquainted with these
matters almost heartless as to the pursuit of the voyage, as thinking we
should never be able to weather Cape St. Augustine: and though I told
them that by that time we should get to about three degrees south of the
Line we should again have a true brisk general tradewind from the
north-east, that would carry us to what part of Brazil we pleased, yet
they would not believe it till they found it so. This, with some other