A Voyage to Guinea, Brasil and the West Indies
9781465684097
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
We took in eight Months Provisions each, at Portsmouth; Stores, Careening Geer, and Necessaries requisite to continue us a double Voyage down the Coast of Guinea, for meeting, if possible, with the Pyrates; who did then very much infest those Parts, and destroy our Trade and Factories. Accordingly the Company’s Governors for Gambia and other Places, embark’d under our Convoy, and were to have what Support we could give them, in restoring the Credit of the Royal African Company; which begun now to take new life under the Influence of the Duke of Chandois. It is a Pleasure we have beyond the Merchant Service in sailing, that we are forbid Commerce. When Men of War have no other Lading than Provisions and Necessaries, the Duty of Sailors is eased, and their Conveniencies better; whereas Cargoes, besides dishonouring the Commission, and unfitting the King’s Ships for Action, stifle and sicken a Ship’s Company in warm Climates, impose hard Services, and spoil the Trade of the Merchant they are designed to encourage, and expect a Gratuity from; because Labour and Freight free, they can afford to undersel. In the Evening from six to nine, we saw those Appearances in the Sky called Capræ saltantes, by the Sailors Morrice Dancers; they are Streams of Light that suddenly shoot into one another, and disappear for a Minute or two; yet shifting their Stations within the Quarter, in so quick and surprizing a manner as might easily deceive superstitious Times into a belief of Armies in the Air; these, the Scintillæ volantes, and such like nitrous Exhalations, having given rise, it’s probable, to all those Prodigies the Air has heretofore inimpious Times abounded with. The Western Extremity of England that we are now passing by, has been supposed, from the equal Depth of Water found there, from Doors, Windows, and Roots of Trees, formerly (it’s said) hooked up by Fishermen, to have been in Ages past continuous with the rocky little Islands of Scilly, by a Land calledLioness. When I consider the Changes Earthquakes and Inundations have made, and continue insensibly to make on all the different Coasts of the Earth, losing in some places, and gaining in others; and what new Islands have now and then been thrust up on the surface of the Waters by Streams and Currents, subterranean Winds and Fires; the thing does not appear to me altogether conjectural: the Rocks seem now with terrible accent to lament the reparation. Who knows but we likewise are severing eternally from our Friends! it is a Voyage we shall at some time or other make; and those solitary Rocks that bound the last sight to our Homes and Countries, naturally bring to my mind some Reflections on the subject.
