We Shall Be Aided
By The Following Particulars, Which, Besides, Imply The Very Extensive
Distress Of The Whole Crew:
"A great number of our people were
afflicted with very severe rheumatic pains, which deprived them of the
use of their limbs; but their spirits were so low, that they had no
fever.
Though the use of that excellent prophylactic, the sour krout,
prevented the appearance of the scurvy during all the cold weather,
yet, being made of cabbage, it is not so nutritive that we could live
upon it, without the assistance of biscuit and salt-beef. But the
former of these being rotten, and the other almost consumed by the
salt, it is obvious that no wholesome juices could be secreted from
thence, which might have kept the body strong and vigorous. Under
these difficulties all our patients recovered very slowly, having
nothing to restore their strength; and my father, who had been in
exquisite torments during the greatest part of our southern cruise,
was afflicted with toothaches, swelled cheeks, sore throat, and
universal pain, till the middle of February, when he went on deck
perfectly emaciated. The warm weather, which was beneficial to him,
proved fatal to Captain Cook's constitution. The disappearance of his
bilious complaint during our last push to the south, had not been so
sincere, as to make him recover his appetite. The return to the north,
therefore, brought on a dangerous obstruction, which the captain very
unfortunately slighted, and concealed from every person in the ship,
at the same time endeavouring to get the better of it by taking hardly
any subsistence.
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