Page:Colnett - Voyage to the South Pacific (IA cihm 33242).djvu/125

 have a good road, and to afford various articles of refrehment: but the French navigator, Monieur Sauvage le Muet, who viited thee iles in this month, in the year 1741, mentions, that his crew grew wore while he remained there.

The healthy eaon, which was now only beginning at St. Blas, ituated in the mouth of the river St. Jago, at little more than twenty leagues from them, might not extend to thoe iles o early as November; and, in the bad eaon, at that place, it is not uncommon for ix or even of the natives to die in the coure of a day, out of the mall number of five or ix hundred inhabitants. Beides, I could not help recurring, with many a melancholy thought, to the fate of my crew, in my former voyage, when we were captured by the Spaniards at Nootka, carried to St. Blas, and treated with the greatet inhumanity. I was determined, therefore, not to rik a econd capture and imprionment by the Spaniards, which would not have been improbable, if we had anchored at the Tres Marias: the launches from the royal dock at St. Blas, frequently viiting thee iles, in order to get flax and lignum vitæ: nor have I the leat doubt of their attempting it, if