squadron being, as I have already mentioned, sickly, and in great want of refreshments; both which inconveniencies we hoped to have soon removed at this settlement, celebrated by former navigators for its healthiness, and the plenty of its provisions, and for the freedom, indulgence, and friendly assistance there given to the ships of all European nations in amity with the crown of Portugal. {47} CHAPTER V PROCEEDINGS AT ST. CATHERINE'S, AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE PLACE, WITH A SHORT ACCOUNT OF BRAZIL Our first care, after having moored our ships, was to get our sick men on shore, preparatory to which, each ship was ordered by the commodore to erect two tents: one of them for the reception of the diseased, and the other for the accommodation of the surgeon and his assistants. We sent about eighty sick from the _Centurion_; and the other ships, I believe, sent nearly as many, in proportion to the number of their hands. As soon as we had performed this necessary duty, we scraped our decks, and gave our ship a thorough cleansing: then smoked it between decks, and after all washed every part well with vinegar. These operations were extremely necessary for correcting the noisome stench on board, and destroying the vermin; for from the number of our men, and the heat of the climate, both these nusances had increased upon us to a very loathsome degree; and besides being most intolerably offensive, they were doubtless in some sort productive of the sickness we had laboured under for a considerable time before our arrival at this island. Our next employment was wooding and watering our squadron, caulking our ships' sides and decks, overhauling our rigging, and securing our masts against the tempestuous weather we were, in all probability, to meet with in our passage round Cape Horn in so advanced and inconvenient a season. But before I engage in the particulars of these transactions, it will not be improper to give some account of the present state of this island of St. Catherine's, and of the neighbouring country, both as the circumstances of this place are now greatly changed from what they were in the time of former writers, and as these changes laid us under many more difficulties and perplexities than we had reason to expect, or than other British ships, hereafter bound to the South Seas, may perhaps think it prudent to struggle with.