After their departure, the commodore with great impatience expected the resolution of the council, and the necessary licences for his refitment.  For it must be observed, as hath already appeared from the preceding narration, that he could neither purchase stores nor necessaries with his money, nor did any kind of workmen dare to engage themselves to work for him, without the permission of the government first obtained.  And in the execution of these particular injunctions, the magistrates never fail of exercising great severity, they, notwithstanding the fustian eulogiums bestowed on them by the catholic missionaries and their European copiers, being composed of the same fragile materials with the rest of mankind, and often making use of the authority of the law, not to suppress crimes, but to enrich themselves by the pillage of those who commit them; for capital punishments are rare in China, the effeminate genius of the nation, and their strong attachment to lucre, disposing them rather to make use of fines; and hence arises no inconsiderable profit to those who compose their tribunals:  Consequently prohibitions of all kinds, particularly such as the alluring prospect of great profit may often tempt the subject to infringe, cannot but be favourite institutions in such a government.  But to return: 

Some time before this, Captain Saunders took his passage to England on board a Swedish ship, and was charged with dispatches from the commodore; and soon after, in the month of December, Captain Mitchel, Colonel Cracherode, and Mr Tassel, one of the agent-victuallers, with his nephew Mr Charles Harriot, embarked on board some of our company’s ships; and I, having obtained, the commodore’s leave to return home, embarked with them.

Whilst we lay here at Macao, we were informed by some of the officers of our Indiamen, that the Severn and Pearl, the two ships of our squadron, which had separated from us off Cape Noir, were safely arrived at Rio Janeiro on the coast of Brazil.  I have formerly taken notice, that at the time of their separation, we apprehended them to be lost.  And there were many reasons which greatly favoured this suspicion:  For we knew that the Severn in particular was extremely sickly; and this was the more obvious to the rest of the ships, as, in the preceding part of the voyage, her commander, Captain Legg, had been remarkable for his exemplary punctuality in keeping his station, till, for the last ten days before his separation, his crew was so diminished and enfeebled, that with his utmost efforts it was not possible for him to maintain it.  Whatever was the cause of it, the Severn was by much the most sickly of the squadron:  For before her departure from St Catharines, she buried more men than any of them, insomuch that the commodore was obliged to recruit her with a number of fresh hands; and the mortality still continuing, she was supplied with men a second time at sea, after our setting sail from St Julians; and, notwithstanding these different reinforcements, she was at last reduced to the distressed condition I have already mentioned.