I see no ground for such a notion, but many reasons which would make it appear to be impracticable, and indeed impossible; unless it should please God to alter the situation of the globe as it respects the sun, and place it in a direct, as it now moves in an oblique position; or that a new species of mankind should be produced, who might be as well qualified to live in the frozen zone as we are in the temperate, and upon whom the extremity of cold could have no power. I say, as there are several parts of the globe where this would be impracticable, I shall say no more than this, that I think it is a groundless suggestion.
But to return to our voyage; we passed by the mouth of this famous Strait of Magellan, and those others which were passed through by Le Maire the Dutch sailor afterwards; and keeping an offing of six or seven leagues, went away south, till we came into the latitude of 58°, when we would, as we had tried three days before, have stretched away south-west, to have got into the South Seas, but a strong gale of wind took us at west-north-west, and though we could, lying near to it, stretch away to the southward, yet, as it over-blowed, we could make no westward way; and though we had under us an excellent strong-built vessel, that, we may say, valued not the waves, and made very good work of it, yet we went away to leeward in spite of all we could do, and lost ground apace. We held it out, however, the weather being clear, but excessive cold, till we found ourselves in the latitude of 64°.
We called our council several times, to consider what we should do, for we did but drive to leeward the longer we strove with it; the gale held still on, and, to our apprehensions, it was set in; blowing like a kind of monsoon, or trade-wind, though in those latitudes I know there is no such thing properly called, as a trade-wind.
We tried, the wind abating, to beat up again to the north, and we did so; but it was by running a great way to the east; and once, I believe, we were in the longitude of St. Helena, though so far south, but it cost us infinite labour, and near six weeks' time. At length we made the coast, and arrived again at the Port of St. Julian the 20th of June, which, by the way, is the depth of their winter.
Here we resolved to lay up for the winter, and not attempt to go so far south again at that time of the year, but our eager desire of pursuing our voyage prevailed, and we put out to sea again, having taken in fresh provisions, such as are to be had there; that is to say, seals, penguins, and such like, and with this recruit we put to sea, I say, a second time.
We had this time worse luck than we had before; for, the wind setting in at south-west, blew a storm, and drove us with such force away to sea eastward, that we were never able to make any way to the southward at all, but were carried away with a continued storm of wind, from the same corner, or near it. Our pilot, or master, as we called him, finding himself often obliged to go away before it, which kept us out long at sea, and drove us far to the north-east, eastward, that he advised us to stand away for the Cape of Good Hope; and accordingly we did so, and arrived there the last day of July.
We were now disheartened indeed, and I began to revive my proposal of going to the East Indies, as I at first proposed; and to answer the objection which they then made against it, as being against the nature of trade, and that we had nothing on board but European goods, which were not fitted for the East Indies, where money only was suitable to the market we were to make; I say, to answer this objection, I told them I would engage that I would sell our whole cargo at the Philippine Islands as well as on the coast of America; for that those islands being Spanish, our disguise of being French would serve us as well at the Philippines, as it would in New Spain; and with this particular advantage, that we should sell here for four times the value we should on the coast of Chili, or Peru; and that, when we had done, we could load our ship again there, or in other places in the Indies, with such goods as would come to a good market again in New Spain.
This I told them was indeed what had not been practised, nor at any other time would it be practicable: for as it was not usual for any ships to go from the East Indies to the Philippines, so neither was it usual for any European ships to trade with freedom in the South Seas, till, since the late war, when the French had the privilege; and I could not but be amazed that the French had never gone this way, where they might have made three or four voyages in one, and with much less hazard of meeting with the English or Dutch cruisers; and have made twice the profits which they made the other way, where they were frequently out three or four years upon one return; whereas here they might make no less than three returns, or perhaps four, in the same voyage and in much less time.
They were now a little surprised, for in all our first debates we had nothing of this matter brought in question; only they entertained a notion that I was going upon strange projects to make discoveries, search for the South pole, plant new colonies, and I know not how many whims of their own, which were neither in my design, or in my instructions. The person, therefore, who was our supercargo, and the other captain, whose name I have not mentioned, together with the French Captain, Merlotte, and the rest, who had all opposed me before, came cheerfully into my proposal; only the supercargo told me, in the name of the rest, that he began to be more sensible of the advantages of the voyage I had proposed, than he was before; but that, as he was equally intrusted with me in the government of the trading part, he begged I would not take it ill, that he desired I would let him farther into that particular, and explain myself, at least as far as I thought proper.
This was so just a request, and so easy for me to do, and, above all, was made with so much good manners and courtesy, that I told him, if I had been otherwise determined, the courteous and good-humoured way with which he required it, would constrain me to it; but that, however, I was very ready to do it, as he was intrusted with the cargo jointly with me, and that it was a piece of justice to the owners, that whom they thought fit to trust I should trust also; upon this I told him my scheme, which was as follows:
First, I said, that, as the Philippine Islands received all their European goods from Acapulco, in America, by the king of Spain's ships, they were obliged to give what price was imposed upon them by the merchants, who brought those goods by so many stages to Acapulco. For example, the European goods, or suppose English goods in particular, with which they were loaden, went first from England to Cadiz, from Cadiz by the galleons to Porto Bello, from Porto Bello, to Panama, from Panama to Acapulco; in all which places the merchants had their several commissions and other profits upon the sale; besides the extravagant charges of so many several ways of carriage, some by water, some by land, and besides the king's customs in all those places; and that, after all this, they were brought by sea from Acapulco to the Philippine Islands, which was a prodigious voyage, and were then generally sold in the Philippine Islands at three hundred per cent. advance.
That, in the room of all this, our cargo being well bought and well sorted, would come to the Philippine Islands at once, without any landing or re-landing, and without any of all the additions of charge to the first cost, as those by the way of New Spain had upon them; so that, if we were to sell them at the Philippine Islands a hundred per cent. cheaper than the Spaniards usually sold, yet we should get abundantly more than we could on the coast of Peru, though we had been allowed a free trade there.
That there were but two objections to this advantage, and these were, our liberty of trading, and whether the place would consume the quantity of goods we had; and to this I had much to answer. First, that it was well known at the Philippine Isles, that the kings of France and Spain were united firmly together; that the king of Spain had allowed the king of France's subjects a free trade in his American dominions, and consequently, that it would not be denied there; but, on the other hand, that, if it was denied by the governor, yet there would be room to find out a trade with the inhabitants, and especially with the Chinese and Japan merchants, who were always there, which trade the governor could not prevent; and thus we could not fear a market for all our cargo, if it was much greater than it was.
That as to the returns, we had the advantage either way: for, first, we should be sure to receive a great part of the price of our goods in Chinese or Japan gold and silver, or in pieces of eight; or, if we thought fit to trade another way, we might take on board such a quantity of China damasks, and other wrought silks, muslins and chintz, China ware, and Japan ware;
