I coasted along till the evening and then brought to, and lay by till the next morning.  About 2 hours after we were brought to, there came a sail out of the offing (from seaward) and lay by about a mile to windward of us and so lay all night.  In the morning upon speaking with her she proved to be a Portuguese ship bound to Bahia; therefore I sent my boat aboard and desired to have one of his mates to pilot me in:  he answered that he had not a mate capable of it, but that he would sail in before me, and show me the way; and that if he went into the harbour in the night he would hang out a light for me.  He said we had not far in, and might reach it before night with a tolerable gale; but that with so small an one as now we had we could not do it:  so we jogged on till night and then he accordingly hung out his light, which we steered after, sounding as we went in.  I kept all my men on deck and had an anchor ready to let go on occasion.  We had the tide of ebb against us, so that we went in but slowly; and it was about the middle of the night when we anchored.  Immediately the Portuguese master came aboard to see me, to whom I returned thanks for his civilities; and indeed I found much respect, not only from this gentleman but from all of that nation both here and in other places, who were ready to serve me on all occasions.  The place that we anchored in was about two miles from the harbour where the ships generally ride; but the fear I had lest my people should run away with the ship made me hasten to get a licence from the governor to run up into the harbour and ride among their ships, close by one of their forts.  So on the 25th of March about ten o’clock in the morning, the tide serving, I went thither, being piloted by the superintendent there, whose business it is to carry up all the King of Portugal’s ships that come hither, and to see them well moored.  He brought us to an anchor right against the town, at the outer part of the harbour, which was then full of ships, within 150 yards of a small fort that stands on a rock half a mile from the shore.  See a prospect of the harbour and the town as it appeared to us while we lay at anchor.

Bahia de todos los Santos lies in latitude 13 degrees south.  It is the most considerable town in Brazil, whether in respect of the beauty of its buildings, its bulk, or its trade and revenue.  It has the convenience of a good harbour that is capable of receiving ships of the greatest burden:  the entrance of which is guarded with a strong fort standing without the harbour, called St. Antonio:  a sight of which I have given as it appeared to us the afternoon before we came in; and its lights (which they hang out purposely for ships) we saw the same night.  There are other smaller forts that command the harbour, one of which stands on a rock in the sea, about half a mile from the shore.  Close by this fort all ships must pass that anchor here, and must ride also within half a mile of it at farthest between this and another fort