Besides these cares, which had regard only to the ships themselves, there were others, which had for their object the preservation of the health of the crews, that furnished a constant occupation to a great number of our hands.  The standing orders, established by Captain Cook, of airing the bedding, placing fires between deck, washing them with vinegar, and smoking them with gunpowder, were observed without any intermission.  For some time past, even the operation of mending the sailors’ old jackets had risen into a duty both of difficulty and importance.  It may be necessary to inform those who are unacquainted with the disposition and habits of seamen, that they are so accustomed in ships of war to be directed in the care of themselves by their officers, that they lose the very idea of foresight, and contract the thoughtlessness of infants.  I am sure, that if our people had been left to their own discretion alone, we should have had the whole crew naked, before the voyage had been half finished.  It was natural to expect, that their experience, during our voyage to the north last year, would have made them sensible of the necessity of paying some attention to these matters; but if such reflections ever occurred to them, their impression was so transitory, that upon our return to the tropical climates, their fur-jackets, and the rest of their cold country clothes, were kicked about the decks as things of no value; though it was generally known in both ships, that we were to make another voyage toward the Pole.  They were of course picked up by the officers; and being put into casks, restored about this time to the owners.

In the afternoon we observed some of the sheathing floating by the ship; and on examination found that twelve or fourteen feet had been washed off from under the larboard bow, where we supposed the leak to have been, which ever since our leaving Sandwich Islands, had kept the people almost constantly at the pumps, making twelve inches water an hour.  This day we saw a number of small crabs, of a pale blue colour; and had again, in company, a few albatrosses and sheerwaters.  The thermometer in the night-time sunk eleven degrees; and although it remained as high as 59 deg., yet we suffered much from the cold, our feelings being as yet by no means reconciled to that degree of temperature.

The wind continued blowing fresh from the N. till the 8th in the morning, when it became more moderate, with fair weather, and gradually changed its direction to the E., and afterward to the S.

On the 9th, at noon, our latitude was 32 deg. 16’, our longitude 166 deg. 40’, and the variation 8 deg. 30’ E. And on the 10th, having crossed the track of the Spanish galleons from the Manillas to Acapulco, we expected to have fallen in with the island of Rica de Plata, which, according to De Lisle’s chart, in which the route of those ships is laid down, ought to have been in sight; its latitude, as there given, being 33 deg. 30’ N., and its longitude 166 deg.  E. Notwithstanding we were so far advanced to the northward, we saw this day a tropic-bird, and also several other kinds of sea-birds, such as puffins, sea-parrots, sheerwaters, and albatrosses.