A VOYAGE TO 
290 
1779* tom, and getting in eight tons of fhingle ballaft. We 
alio got up two of our guns, that had been flowed in 
the- fore-hold, and mounted them on the deck, being 
now about to vifit nations, our reception amongft whom 
might a good deal depend on the refpeflability of our ap¬ 
pearance. 
Wednef. 8. The Refolution hauled on fhore on the 8th, to repair 
fome damages, which fhe had alfo received among the ice, 
in her cut-water; and our carpenters, in their turn, were 
fent to her afliftance. 
About this time we began to brew a ftrong decodtion 
of a fpecies of dwarf-pine that grows here in great abun¬ 
dance, thinking that it might hereafter be ufeful in mak¬ 
ing beer, and that we flioukl probably be able to procure 
fugar or melafles to ferment with it at Canton. At all 
events, I was fure it would be ferviceable as a medicine for 
the fcurvy; and was more particularly deflrous of fupply- 
ing myfelf with as much of it as I could procure, becaufe 
moft of the preventatives we had brought out, were either 
ufed, or fpoiled by keeping. By the time we had prepared 
a hogfhead of it, the fhip’s copper was difcovered to be 
very thin, and cracked in many places. This obliged me 
to deiift, and to give orders, that it ihould be ufed as fpa- 
ringlv, for the future, as poflible. It might, perhaps, be 
an ufeful precaution for thofe who may hereafter be en¬ 
gaged in long voyages of this kind, either to provide them- 
felves with a fpare copper, or to fee that the copper ufually 
fumifhed be of the ftrongeft kind. The various extra- 
fervices, in which it will be found neceflary to employ them, 
and efpecially the important one of making antifcorbutic 
decodtions, feem abfolutely to require fome fuch provifion ; 
and I fhould rather recommend the former, on account of 
3 the 
