VOYAGE TO THE SOUTH SEAS.
95
have a good road, and to afford various articles of refreſhment: but the French navigator, Monſieur Sauvage le Muet, who viſited theſe iſles in this month, in the year 1741, mentions, that his crew grew worſe while he remained there.
The healthy ſeaſon, which was now only beginning at St. Blas, ſituated in the mouth of the river St. Jago, at little more than twenty leagues from them, might not extend to thoſe iſles ſo early as November; and, in the bad ſeaſon, at that place, it is not uncommon for ſix or ſeven of the natives to die in the courſe of a day, out of the ſmall number of five or ſix hundred inhabitants. Beſides, 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 greateſt inhumanity. I was determined, therefore, not to riſk a ſecond capture and impriſonment 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 viſiting theſe iſles, in order to get flax and lignum vitæ: nor have I the leaſt doubt of their attempting it, if