However, though their distresses for fresh water are much short of what might be expected in so tedious a navigation, yet there are other inconveniences generally attendant upon a long continuance at sea from which they are not exempted. The principal of these is the scurvy, which sometimes rages with extreme violence, and destroys great numbers of the people; but at other times their passage to Acapulco (of which alone I would be here understood to speak) is performed with little loss.
The length of time employed in this passage, so much beyond what usually occurs in any other known navigation, is perhaps in part to be imputed to the indolence and unskilfulness of the Spanish sailors, and to an unnecessary degree of caution, on pretence of the great riches of the vessel: for it is said that they rarely set their main-sail in the night, and often lie by unnecessarily. Thus much is certain, that the instructions given to their captains (which I have seen) seem to have been drawn up by such as were more apprehensive of too strong a gale, though favourable, than of the inconveniences and mortality attending a lingering and tedious voyage. For the captain is particularly ordered to make his passage in the latitude of 30 degrees, if possible, and to be extremely careful to stand no farther to the northward than is absolutely necessary for the getting a westerly wind. This, according to our conceptions, appears to be a very absurd restriction, since it can scarcely be doubted but that in the higher latitudes the westerly winds are much steadier and brisker than in the latitude of 30 degrees. Indeed the whole conduct of this navigation seems liable to very great censure: since, if instead of steering E.N.E. into the latitude of 30 degrees, they at first stood N.E. or even still more northerly, into the latitude of 40 or 45 degrees, in part of which coast the trade-winds would greatly assist them, I doubt not but by this management they might considerably contract their voyage, and perhaps perform it in half the time which is now allotted for it. This may in some measure be deduced from their own journals; since in those I have seen, it appears that they are often a month or six weeks after their laying the land before they get into the latitude of 30 degrees; whereas, with a more northerly course, it might easily be done in less than a fortnight. Now when they were once well advanced to the northward, the { 225} westerly winds would soon blow them over to the coast of California, and they would be thereby freed from the other embarrassments to which they are at present subjected, only at the expence of a rough sea and a stiff gale. This is not merely matter of speculation; for I am credibly informed that about the year 1721, a French ship, by pursuing this course, ran from the coast of China to the valley of Vanderas, on the coast of Mexico, in less than fifty days: but it was said that notwithstanding the shortness of her passage, she suffered prodigiously by the scurvy, so that she had only four or five of her crew remaining alive when she arrived in America.