1773*
June.
July.
Friday g.
another crime added to the fcore of civilized nations,
which muft make their memory execrated by the unhappy
people, whom they have poifoned. Nothing can in the
leaft atone for the injury they have done to fociety, fince
the price at which their libidinous enjoyments were pur-
chafed, inftils another poifon into the mind, and deftroys
the moral principles, while the difeafe corrupts and enervates
the body, (fee pag. a i a.) A race of men, who amidft
all their favage roughnefs,- their fiery temper, and cruel
'cuftoms, are brave, generous, hofpitable, and incapable of
deceiving, are juftly to be pitied, that love, the fource of
their fweeteft and happieft feelings, is converted into the
origin of the moft dreadful fcoufge of life.
The wind ftill continued as changeable as before, till the
beginning of July, having veered all round the compafs
•againft the fun, more than four times. During this fpace
albatroffes, petrels, and fea-weeds, were frequently feenj
rainbows alfo appeared almoft every morning, nay one
night we obferved this phenomenon pretty firong, caufed
by the refrafted light of the moon.
On the 9th of July we were nearly in the fame longitude,
where captain Cook, in the Endeavour, had reached
400 22 fouth*, but our latitude was about two degrees
and a quarter more foutherly. Here we loft a young hegoat,
goat, which fell over board, and notwithftanding all pof- ’w
fible means were tried for his recovery, fuch as chafing,
injefting clyfters of the fumes of tobacco, &c. our endeavours
proved .entirely ineffechial.
July i 7 th, hatting paft the longitude of 2 ay® eaft, and Saturday ifb
being in about 400 fouth latitude, yve hegan to run due
north, after a very tedious courfc in fearch of the fouthern
continent, the exiftence of which, in the latitudes we had
now palled through, had been pofitively aflerted. The uncomfortable
feafon of the year, the mapy contrary winds,
and the total want of interefting incidents united to make
this run extremely tedious to us all, and the only point
we had gained by it, was the certainty that no great land
was fituated in the South Sea about the middle latitudes.
In five days trine 'Our latitude being 31^ fouth, we began
to lofe fight of albatroffes and petrels, and the thermometer
was rifen to 6 i f , fo that we began to
change our winter clothes for others, confiderably thinner,
for the.firft time after leaving the Cape qf Good Hope.
The fpirits of all our people were much exhilarated in
proportion as We approached to the tropics, and ourfailors
diverted themfelves with a variety of plays every evening.
The genial mildnefs of the air was fo welcome to us,
after a long abfence from it, that we could not help preferring
the warm climates as the beft adapted for the abode
of mankind. We faw a tropic bird on the 25th in the Sunday ...
afternoon, a fure fign that we were arrived into the tem-
Vol. I. 1 i peratc