Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/154

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144
VOYAGE IN SEARCH
[1792.

ſquall from the mountains blew with ſuch violence, that it prevented us for ſome time from making uſe of our rudder, ſo that we were in danger of running foul of ſome of the ſhips which lay at anchor in the road. However, we ſoon run paſt them, and ſtood for the offing.

18th. About eight in the morning our maſter-carpenter, Louis Gargan, died, a victim to the exceſſes in which he had indulged during our ſtay at the Cape. A fever, which appeared ſlight in its commencement, grew afterwards ſo violent as to put an end to his life. We felt the loſs of this man the more ſenſibly, as the carpenter of a ſhip is one of the moſt uſeful perſons on board, eſpecially in a voyage undertaken for the purpoſe of diſcovery in the midſt of ſeas full of rocks and ſhoals, where one is in perpetual danger of being ſhipwrecked, and where, if one does not poſſeſs the means of conſtructing another veſſel to receive the crew, all hopes of reviſiting one's native country muſt go with the wreck to the bottom.

Two perſons had concealed themſelves in the ſhip before our departure from the Cape, and did not make their appearance upon deck till we were ſo far from the land that it was no more practicable to put them on ſhore. They were, of courſe, permitted to accompany us. The one was a ſoldier, deſerted from the garriſon at the Cape; the

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