2S .a; voyage to 
c H A p. to their next intended flation, the harbour of Rio dc 
IV. ' 
^— "'—^ Janeiro. ; . . 
It may appear perhaps, on a flight confiderationj 
rather extraordinary, that veffels bound to the Gape of 
Good Hope fliould find it expedient to touch at a harbour 
of South America. To run acrofs the Atlantic, and take 
as a part of their courfe, that coaft, the very exiftence of 
vv^hich was unknown to the lirft navigators of thefe feas, 
fecms a very circuitous method of performing the voyage. 
A Uttle examination will remove this apparent difficulty. 
The calms fo frequent on the African iide, are of them- 
felves a fufficient caufe to induce a navigator to keep 
a very wefterly courfe ; and even the iflands at which it 
is fo often convenient to touch will carry him vv'ithin a 
few degrees of the South American coaft. — The return- 
'■■ ing tracks of Captain Gooks's three voyages all run within 
a very fmall fpace of the 45th degree of weft longitude, 
which is even ten degrees further to the weft than the 
extremity of Cape St. Roque : and that courfe appears to 
have been taken voluntarily, without any extraordinary 
inducement. But in the latitudes to which Governor 
Phillip's fquadron had now arrived^ the old and new con- 
tinent approach fo near to each other, that in avoiding the 
one it becomes neceffary to run within a very moderate, 
diftance of the oppofite land. 
■,-/ ^ In 
