1st. That the officers of the ship, including the carpenter, who were to be presumed to be better judges than M. Gerard or myself, were of opinion, that we ought not to attempt to go to Europe, and had this reason stood single and unexplained, I should not readily have ventured to reject it, especially as it appeared to me against the interest of the officers to come to the West Indies, and I have heard them constantly and uniformly regret the necessity of it; but I also thought they decided on good grounds; for 2dly. The rudder daily gave us infinite trouble, almost everyday a pennant breaking, and on every such occasion the ship for some time left to the direction of the wind and waves, a circumstance which might be fatal in hard weather, and near land; the quantity of cordage consumed in this way of steering; the doubt of our having sufficient for the purpose without stripping the guns, which would thereby be rendered useless; the rudder irons daily becoming more and more loose, and, by the nails drawing out, opening a passage for the water into the stem of the ship. By this circumstance our bread had been damaged; the danger of our being obliged to get rid of the rudder entirely, and steering only by the cable, which in northern seas, and winter season, is very inadequate. This event would have arrived in case either of the eye bolts in the rudder had given way, as the first mentioned one had done, or the upper irons become entirely loose; and for this event it was thought necessary to prepare, by removing the obstacles to unhanging the rudder. Indeed the upper irons in the course of our passage here, with fair winds and no storms, became so loose as to render it necessary to lash the head of the rudder with ropes to a bolt fixed for the purpose in the cabin floor. 3dly. The sails we had left were bad, having been originally made, as Mr Vaughan the second Lieutenant told me, of damaged canvass; they frequently split; we had none to replace them, nor a sufficient stock of twine to mend them, eight pounds only being left of the twenty odd we brought from Philadelphia; nor were we much better supplied with cordage, for which there was a daily demand and some of which was very bad. 4thly. Our jury masts were not calculated for hard weather, the foremast being sprung a few feet below the top, and not able to endure a hard storm. For these reasons the rough weather common in northern latitudes was by all means to be avoided, and smooth seas sought.