324 
VOYAGE OF THE POTOMAC. 
[April, 
on shore, delayed naming a day for the saihng of the frigate. 
The crisis at length took place, which was succeeded by a favour- 
able change, so that on Monday, the ninth of April, the lad was 
so far convalescent as to be conveyed on board the Potomac, 
which sailed on the following morning. 
During her stay at Batavia, the sick-list had increased to forty- 
one, and two had died, who were buried on a neighbouring island. 
I'he invalids on board were principally afflicted with dysentery, 
and young Downes, the commodore's son, was the only individual 
who experienced an attack of the Batavia fever, which finally, 
on the passage across the Pacific, changed to an intermittent, from 
which he did not recover until he passed through the process of 
having the smallpox, on the coast of Chili. 
On Tuesday morning, the tenth of April, a little after daylight, 
the anchor was weighed and the frigate got under way. The 
wind being light, every sail was spread to catch its soft breathings, 
as the gallant ship moved slowly on the glassy bosom of Batavia 
Bay, standing directly north. At meridian, the South Watcher 
Island bore north-by- west-half-west. This island is about twenty- 
seven miles from our recent anchorage. 
On leaving Batavia, the Strait of Sunda, or Malacca, during 
the months of March, April, or May, the navigator will most prob- 
ably be doomed to experience a long and unpleasant passage to 
China. Though the strength of the northeast monsoon may have 
greatly relaxed in its force, the currents may still be unfavourable, 
and the calms which are liable to happen between the two mon- 
soons often render a passage most perplexingly tedious. Had 
not the various incidents of the voyage delayed the Potomac in 
her departure from the Sunda Isles, the commodore would have 
been compelled to take another and very different route- than that 
through the China Sea. During the months of January or Feb- 
ruary, it would have been almost impossible to make way against 
the northeast monsoon, either by the inner route, along the 
coast of Cochin China, or by Macclesfield Bank through the 
China Sea, so that he would have been compelled to go through 
the Straits of Macassar, and leaving the great Island of Borneo, 
as well as Luconia, to the west, again stood in to the north- 
west, through the channel of Formosa, and from thence to Lintin 
and Canton river. The lateness of the season, however, did not 
