2T4 
A VOYAGE TO 
1803. 
June. 
/ 
[East Coast. 
at the average price of lod. per pound, which before, if it could have 
been obtained, would have cost nearly double the sum. On my 
application to the governor, the commissary was ordered to supply 
us with two pipes of port wine ; and a pint was given daily to all 
those on board, as well as on shore, whose debilitated health was 
judged by the surgeon to require it. 
The arrangements being made which concerned the health of 
the ship’s company, I inclosed to the governor the report of the’ 
master and carpenter upon the state of the ship when in the Gulph 
of Carpentaria ; and requested that he would appoint officers to make 
a survey of her condition. A plank was ripped off all round, a little 
above the water’s edge ; and on the 14th, the officers appointed by 
His Excellency made the survey, and their report was as follows : 
“ Pursuant to an order from His Excellency 
Philip Gidley King, esquire, principal com- 
mander of His Majesty’s ship Buffalo/’ 
“ We whose names are hereunto subscribed, have been on 
board His Majesty’s ship Investigator, and taken a strict) careful, and 
minute survey of her defects, the state of which we find to be as fol lows. 
One plank immediately above the wales being ripped off all 
round the ship, we began the examination on the larbord side for- 
ward; and out of ninety-eight timbers we find eleven to be sound, so 
far as the ripping off' of one plank enables us to see into them, ten of 
which are amongst the aftermost timbers. Sixty-three of the remain- 
ing timbers are so far rotten as to make it necessary to shift them; and 
the remaining twenty-four entirely rotten, and these are principally in 
the bow and the middle of the ship. 
On the starbord side forward we have minutely examined 
eighty-nine timbers, out of which we find only five sound; fifty-six 
are so far decayed as to require shifting, and the remaining twenty- 
eight are entirely rotten. The sound timbers are in the after part of 
the ship, and those totally decayed lie principally in the bow. 
The stemson is so far decayed, principally in its outer part, a* 
to make it absolutely necessary to be shifted. 
