there is no want of pine-apples, peaches, grapes, oranges, lemons, citrons, melons, apricots, and plantains; there is also abundance of onions and potatoes, two productions of no small consideration for sea-stores.  The flesh provisions are, however, much inferior to the vegetables.  There are, indeed, small wild cattle to be purchased, something like buffaloes, but these are very indifferent food, their flesh being of a loose texture, and generally of a disagreeable flavour, probably owing to their feeding on wild calabash.  There are also abundance of pheasants, but they are not to be compared in taste to those we have in England.  The other provisions of the place are monkeys, parrots, and, above all, fish of various sorts:  These abound in the harbour, and are both exceedingly good and easily caught, as there are numerous sandy bays, very convenient for haling the seyne.

The water, both on the island and the opposite continent, is excellent, and preserves at sea as well as that of the Thames.  After it has been a day or two in the cask, it begins to purge itself, stinks most abominably, and is soon covered over with a green scum, which subsides in a few days to the bottom, leaving the water perfectly sweet, and as clear as crystal.  The French first brought this place into repute during their South-Sea trade in the reign of Queen Anne, and usually wooded and watered in Bon-port, on the continental side of the harbour, where they anchored in great safety in six fathoms, and this is doubtless the most commodious station for ships that are meant only for a short stay.  We watered on the St Catharine’s side, at a plantation opposite to the island of St Antonio.

Such are the advantages of this island; but it has its inconveniences also, partly proceeding from its climate, but more particularly from its new regulations and the form of its government, as lately established.  In regard to the climate, it must be remembered that the woods and hills which surround the harbour prevent a free circulation of air, and the continual vigorous vegetation furnishes such a prodigious quantity of vapour, that a thick fog covers the whole country all night, and a great part of the morning, continuing till either the sun gathers strength to dissipate it, or it is dispersed by a brisk sea-breeze.  This renders the place close and humid, and probably occasioned the many fevers and fluxes we were there afflicted with.  I must not omit to add, that we were pestered all day by vast numbers of mosquetoes, which are not much unlike the gnats in England, but much more venomous in their stings.  At sunset, when the musquetoes retired, they were succeeded by an infinity of sand-flies, which made a mighty buzzing, though scarcely discernable by the naked eye; wherever these bite, they raise a small lump attended by painful itching, like that arising from the bite of an English harvest bug.  The only light in which this place deserves our consideration is its favourable situation for supplying and refreshing our cruizers bound for the South Sea, and in this view its greatest inconveniences remain to be related, to do which more distinctly, it may not be amiss to consider the changes which it has lately undergone, both in its inhabitants, its police, and its governor.