The remaining part of this month of April we had generally hard gales, although we had been every day, since the 22d, edging to the northward; however, on the last day of the month, we flattered ourselves with the expectation of soon terminating all our sufferings, for we that day found ourselves in the latitude of 52° 13', which being to the northward of the Streights of Magellan, we were assured that we had compleated our passage, and had arrived in the confines of the southern ocean; and this ocean being denominated Pacifick, from the equability of the seasons which are said to prevail there, and the facility and security with which navigation is there carried on, we doubted not but we should be speedily cheared with the moderate gales, the smooth water, {100} and the temperate air for which that track of the globe has been so renowned. And under the influence of these pleasing circumstances we hoped to experience some kind of compensation for the complicated miseries which had so constantly attended us for the last eight weeks. But here we were again disappointed, for in the succeeding month of May our sufferings rose to a much higher pitch than they had ever yet done, whether we consider the violence of the storms, the shattering of our sails and rigging, or the diminishing and weakening of our crew by deaths and sickness, and the probable prospect of our total destruction. All this will be sufficiently evident from the following circumstantial account of our diversified misfortunes. Soon after our passing Streights Le Maire, the scurvy began to make its appearance amongst us, and our long continuance at sea, the fatigue we underwent, and the various disappointments we met with, had occasioned its spreading to such a degree that at the latter end of April there were but few on board who were not in some degree afflicted with it, and in that month no less than forty-three died of it on board the _Centurion_. But though we thought that the distemper had then risen to an extraordinary height, and were willing to hope that as we advanced to the northward its malignity would abate, yet we found, on the contrary, that in the month of May we lost near double that number; and as we did not get to land till the middle of June, the mortality went on increasing, and the disease extended itself so prodigiously that, after the loss of above two hundred men, we could not at last muster more than six fore-mast men in a watch capable of duty.