The delay alone
would have been a sufficient mortification, but there were other
circumstances attending it which rendered this situation not less
terrible, and our apprehensions perhaps still greater, than in any of our
past distresses, for our two ships were by this time extremely crazy, and
many days had not passed before we discovered a spring in the foremast of
the Centurion, which rounded about twenty-six inches of its
circumference, and which was judged to be at least four inches deep; and
no sooner had our carpenters secured this with fishing it but the
Gloucester made a signal of distress, and we learned that she had a
dangerous spring in her mainmast, so that she could not carry any sail
upon it. Our carpenters, on a strict examination of this mast, found it
so very rotten and decayed that they judged it necessary to cut it down
as low as it appeared to have been injured, and by this it was reduced to
nothing but a stump, which served only as a step to the topmast. These
accidents augmented our delay and occasioned us great anxiety about our
future security, for on our leaving the coast of Mexico the scurvy had
begun to make its appearance again amongst our people, though from our
departure from Juan Fernandez we had till then enjoyed a most
uninterrupted state of health. We too well knew the effects of this
disease from our former fatal experience to suppose that anything but a
speedy passage could secure the greater part of our crew from perishing
by it, and as, after being seven weeks at sea, there did not appear any
reasons that could persuade us we were nearer the trade wind than when we
first set out, there was no ground for us to suppose but our passage
would prove at least three times as long as we at first expected, and
consequently we had the melancholy prospect either of dying by the scurvy
or perishing with the ship for want of hands to navigate her.
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