96 cook's voyage to july, 



we had expended, and to receive on board a supply 

 of Port wine. This was the employment which 

 occupied us on the 1st and 2d of July. 



During our stay here, the crews were served with 

 fresh beef every day : and I should not do justice to 

 Mr. Ommanney, the agent-victualler, if I did not 

 take this opportunity to mention, that he showed a 

 very obliging readiness to furnish me with the best 

 of every thing that lay within his department. I 

 had been under the like obligations to him on my 

 setting out upon my last voyage. Commissioner 

 Ourry, with equal zeal for the service, gave us every 

 assistance that we wanted from the naval yard. 



It could not but occur to us as a singular and 

 affecting circumstance, that at the \ery instant of 

 our departure upon a voyage, the object of which 

 was to benefit Europe by making fresh discoveries 

 in North America, there should be the unhappy 

 necessity of employing others of his Majesty's 

 ships, and of conveying numerous bodies of land 

 forces, to secure the obedience of those parts of that 

 continent which had been discovered and settled by 

 our countrymen in the last century. On the 6th, 

 his Majesty's ships Diamond, Ambuscade, and Uni- 

 corn, with a fleet of transports, consisting of sixty- 

 two sail, bound to America, with the last division of 

 the Hessian troops, and some horse, were forced 

 into the Sound by a strong north-west wind. 



On the 8th, I received, by express, my instruc- 

 tions* for the voyage, and an order to proceed to 

 the Cape of Good Hope with the Resolution. I 

 was also directed to leave an order for Captain Clerke 

 to follow us, as soon as he should join his ship; he 

 being, at this time, detained in London. 



Our first discoverers of the New World, and na- 

 vigators of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, were 

 justly thought to have exerted such uncommon 

 abilities, and to have accomplished such perilous 



* See the instructions in the Introduction. 



