A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 14Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 14
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
On the 26th, in the afternoon, being in the latitude of 28° 44', we had
several observations of the sun and moon, which gave the longitude 135° 30'
W. My reckoning at the same time was 135° 27', and I had no occasion to
correct it since I left the land. We continued to stretch to the north,
with light breezes from the westward, till noon, the next day, when we were
stopped by a calm; our latitude at this time being 27° 53', longitude 135°
17' W. In the evening, the calm was succeeded by a breeze from the N. and
N.W., with which we plied to the N.
On the 29th I sent on board the Adventure to enquire into the state of her
crew, having heard that they were sickly; and this I now found was but too
true. Her cook was dead, and about twenty of her best men were down in the
scurvy and flux. At this time _we_ had only three men on the sick list, and
only one of them attacked with the scurvy. Several more, however, began to
shew symptoms of it, and were accordingly put upon the wort, marmalade of
carrots, rob of lemons and oranges.
I know not how to account for the scurvy raging more in the one ship than
the other, unless it was owing to the crew of the Adventure being more
scorbutic when they arrived in New Zealand than we were, and to their
eating few or no vegetables while they lay in Queen Charlotte's Sound,
partly for want of knowing the right sorts, and partly because it was a new
diet, which alone was sufficient for seamen to reject it. To introduce any
new article of food among seamen, let it be ever so much for their good,
requires both the example and authority of a commander; without both, of
which it will be dropt before the people are sensible of the benefits
resulting from it. Were it necessary, I could name fifty instances in
support of this remark. Many of my people, officers as well seamen, at
first disliked celery, scurvy-grass, &c., being boiled in the peas and
wheat; and some refused to eat it. But, as this had no effect on my
conduct, this obstinate kind of prejudice by little and little wore off;
they began to like it as well as the others; and now, I believe, there was
hardly a man in the ship that did not attribute our being so free from the
scurvy, to the beer and vegetables we made use of at New Zealand. After
this I seldom found it necessary to order any of my people to gather
vegetables, whenever we came where any were to be got, and if scarce, happy
was he who could lay hold on them first. I appointed one of my seamen to be
cook of the Adventure, and wrote to Captain Furneaux, desiring him to make
use of every method in his power to stop the spreading of the disease
amongst his people, and proposing such as I thought might tend towards it.
But I afterwards found all this unnecessary, as every method had been used
they could think of.[6]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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