[Footnote 72:  There is no reason for supposing that this viceroy had any greater dislike to our countrymen than to any other, or that he acted otherwise towards them than he was accustomed to do in similar cases.  Bougainville complains of him much, and represents him as a turbulent ill-mannered fellow.  “Having,” says he, “on one occasion, upon the repeated leave of the viceroy, concluded a bargain for buying a snow, his excellency forbad the seller to deliver it to me.  He likewise gave orders, that we should not be allowed the necessary timber out of the royal dock-yards, for which we had already agreed; he then refused me the permission of lodging with my officers (during the time that the frigate underwent some essential repairs) in a house near the town, offered me by its proprietor, and which Commodore Byron had occupied in 1765, when he touched at this port.  On this account, and likewise on his refusing me the snow and the timber, I wanted to make some remonstrances to him.  He did not give me time to do it:  And at the first words I uttered, be rose in a furious passion, and ordered me to go out; and being certainly piqued, that in spite of his anger, I remained sitting with two officers who accompanied me, he called his guards; but they, wiser than himself, did not come, and we retired, so that nobody seemed to have been disturbed.  We were hardly gone, when the guards of his palace were doubled, and orders given to arrest all the French that should be found in the streets after sunsetting.”  According to this writer, it appears that neither the laws of nations, nor the rules of good breeding, were respected by this very important being, “vain of his authority.”—­E.]

This promise was performed, and on the next morning, the 14th, I went on shore, and obtained leave of the viceroy to purchase provisions and refreshments for the ship, provided I would employ one of their own people as a factor, but not otherwise.  I made some objections to this, but he insisted upon it as the custom of the place.  I objected also against the pulling a soldier into the boat every time she went between the ship and the shore; but he told me, that this was done by the express orders of his court, with which he could in no case dispense.  I then requested, that the gentlemen whom I had on board might reside on shore during our stay, and that Mr Banks might go up the country to gather plants; but this he absolutely refused.  I judged from his extreme caution, and the severity of these restrictions, that he suspected we were come to trade; I therefore took some pains to convince him of the contrary.  I told him, that we were bound to the southward, by the order of his Britannic majesty, to observe a transit of the planet Venus over the sun, an astronomical phenomenon of great importance to navigation.  Of the transit of Venus, however, he could form no other conception, than that it was the passing of the north star through the south pole; for these are