Our surgeon (who, during our passage round Cape Horn, had ascribed the mortality we suffered to the severity of the climate) exerted himself in the present run to the utmost, and at last declared, that all his measures were totally ineffectual, and did not in the least avail his patients.  When we reached the trade-wind, and it settled between the north and the east, yet it seldom blew with so much strength, but the Centurion might have carried all her small sails abroad with the greatest safety; so that now, had we been a single ship, we might have run down our longitude apace, and have reached the Ladrones soon enough to have recovered great numbers of our men, who afterwards perished.  But the Gloucester, by the loss of her main-mast, sailed so very heavily, that we had seldom any more than our top-sails set, and yet were frequently obliged to lie to for her:  And, I conceive, that in the whole we lost little less than a month by our attendance upon her, in consequence of the various mischances she encountered.  In all this run it was remarkable, that we were rarely many days together, without seeing great numbers of birds; which is a proof that there are many islands, or at least rocks, scattered all along, at no very considerable distance from our track.  Some indeed there are marked in a Spanish chart; but the frequency of the birds seems to evince, that there are many more than have been hitherto discovered:  For the greatest part of the birds we observed were such as are known to roost on shore; and the manner of their appearance sufficiently made out, that they came from some distant haunt every morning, and returned thither again in the evening; for we never saw them early or late; and the hour of their arrival and departure gradually varied, which we supposed was occasioned by our running nearer their haunts, or getting farther from them.

The trade-wind continued to favour us without any fluctuation, from the end of June till towards the end of July.  But on the 26th of July, being then, as we esteemed, about three hundred leagues distant from the Ladrones, we met with a westerly wind, which did not come about again to the eastward in four days time.  This was a most dispiriting incident, as it at once damped all our hopes of speedy relief, especially too as it was attended with a vexatious accident to the Gloucester:  For in one part of these four days the wind-flatted to a calm, and the ships rolled very deep; by which means the Gloucester’s forecap split, and her top-mast came by the board, and broke her fore-yard directly in the slings.  As she was hereby rendered incapable of making any sail for some time, we were obliged, as soon as a gale sprung up, to take her in tow; and near twenty of the healthiest and ablest of our seamen were taken from the business of our own ship, and were employed for eight or ten days together on board the Gloucester in repairing her damages:  But these things, mortifying as we thought them, were but the beginning of our