These are the advantages of this island of St. Catherine's; but there are many inconveniencies attending it, partly from its climate, but more from its new regulations, and the late form of government established there. With regard to the climate, it must be remembered that the woods and hills which surround the harbour prevent a free circulation of the air. And the vigorous vegetation which constantly takes place there, furnishes such a prodigious quantity of vapour that all the night, and great part of the morning, a thick fog covers the whole country, and continues till either the sun gathers strength to dissipate it, or it is dispersed by a brisk sea-breeze. This renders the place close and humid, and probably occasioned the many fevers and fluxes we were there afflicted with. To these exceptions I must not omit to add, that all the day we were pestered with great numbers of muscatos, which are not much unlike the gnats in England, but more venomous in their stings. And at sunset, when the muscatos retired, they were succeeded by an infinity of sand-flies, which, though scarce discernible to the naked eye, make a mighty buzzing, and, wherever they bite, raise a small bump in the flesh which is soon attended with a painful itching, like that arising from the bite of an English harvest bug. But as the only light in which this place deserves our consideration is its favourable situation for supplying and refreshing our cruisers intended for the South Seas, in this view its greatest inconveniences remain still to be related. And to do this more distinctly, it will not be amiss to consider the changes which it has lately undergone, both in its inhabitants, its police, and its governor.