a circumstance of much disappointment to many individuals on board, who, as is natural in long voyages, were eager on every occasion to enjoy the refreshments of the shore.  As an additional incitement to such wishes, the weather had now become hot; the thermometer stood at 82 deg., which, though not an immoderate heat for a tropical climate, is sufficient to produce considerable annoyance.  But, unmoved by any consideration except that of expedience, Governor Phillip persisted in conducting his ships to their next intended station, the harbour of Rio de Janeiro.

It may appear perhaps, on a slight consideration, rather extraordinary, that vessels bound to the Cape of Good Hope should find it expedient to touch at a harbour of South America.  To run across the Atlantic, and take as a part of their course, that coast, the very existence of which was unknown to the first navigators of these seas, seems a very circuitous method of performing the voyage.  A little examination will remove this apparent difficulty.  The calms so frequent on the African side, are of themselves a sufficient cause to induce a navigator to keep a very westerly course; and even the islands at which it is so often convenient to touch will carry him within a few degrees of the South American coast.—­The returning tracks of Captain Cooks’s three voyages all run within a very small space of the 45th degree of west longitude, which is even ten degrees further to the west than the extremity of Cape St. Roque:  and that course appears to have been taken voluntarily, without any extraordinary inducement.  But in the latitudes to which Governor Phillip’s squadron had now arrived, the old and new continent approach so near to each other, that in avoiding the one it becomes necessary to run within a very moderate distance of the opposite land.

In the passage from the Cape Verd Islands, the fleet suffered for some time the inconvenience of great heat, attended by heavy rains.  The heat, however, did not at any time exceed the point already specified,* and the precautions unremittingly observed in all the ships happily continued efficacious in preventing any violent sickness.  Nor did the oppression of the hot weather continue so long as in these latitudes might have been expected; for before they reached the equator the temperature had become much more moderate.

[* 82 deg., 51.  It is not unusual in England, to have the thermometer, for a day or two in a summer, at 81 deg..]

5 July 1787

On July 5, 1787, being then in long. 26 deg. 10’ west from Greenwich, the Botany Bay fleet passed from the Northern into the Southern Hemisphere.  About three weeks more of very favourable and pleasant weather conveyed them to Rio de Janeiro.

5-6 August 1787

On the 5th of August they anchored off the harbour, and on the evening of the 6th were at their station within it.  The land of Cape Frio had been discovered some days before, but a deficiency of wind from that time a little slackened their course.