On the 6th, being in latitude 19° 3ʹ South, longitude 35° 50ʹ West, the colour of the water was observed to change, upon which we sounded, and found ground at the depth of 32 fathoms: the lead was cast three times within about four hours, without a foot difference in the depth or quality of the bottom, which was coral rock, fine sand, and shells; we therefore supposed that we had passed over the tail of the great shoal which is laid down in all our charts by the name of Abrothos, on which Lord Anson struck soundings in his passage outwards: at four the next morning we had no ground with 100 fathom.
As several articles of our stock and provisions now began to fall short, I determined to put into Rio de Janeiro, rather than at any port in Brazil or Falkland’s Islands, knowing that it could better supply us with what we wanted, and making no doubt but that we should be well received.
On the 8th, at day-break, we saw the coast of Brazil, and about ten o’clock we brought to, and spoke with a fishing boat: the people on board told us that the land which we saw lay to the southward of Sancto Espirito, but belonging to the captainship of that place.
Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went on board this vessel, in which they found eleven men, nine of whom were blacks: they all fished with lines; and their fresh cargo, the chief part of which Mr. Banks bought, consisted of dolphins, large pelagic scombers of two kinds, sea-bream, and some of the fish which, in the West Indies, are called Welshmen. Mr. Banks had taken Spanish silver with him, which he imagined to be the currency of the Continent, but to his great surprise the people asked him for English shillings; he gave them two, which he happened to have about him, and it was not without some dispute that they took the rest of the money in pistereens. Their business seemed to be to catch large fish at a good distance from the shore, which they salted in bulk, in a place made for that purpose in the middle of their boat: of this merchandize they had about two quintals on board, which they offered for about 16 shillings, and would probably have sold for half the money. The fresh fish, which was bought for about nineteen shillings and sixpence, served the whole ship’s company: the salt was not wanted.
The sea-provision of these fishermen consisted of nothing more than a cask of water, and a bag of Cassada flour, which they called Farinha de Pao, or wooden flour; which, indeed, is a name which very well suits its taste and appearance. Their water-cask was large, as wide as their boat, and exactly fitted a place that was made for it in the ballast; it was impossible therefore to draw out any of its contents by a tap, the sides being, from the bottom to the top, wholly inaccessible; neither could any be taken out by dipping a vessel in at the head, for an opening sufficiently wide for that purpose would have endangered the loss of great part of it by the rolling of the vessel: their expedient to get at their water, so situated, was curious; when one of them wanted to drink, he applied to his neighbour, who accompanied him to the water-cask with a hollow cane about three feet long, which was open at both ends; this he thrust into the cask through a small hole in the top, and then, stopping the upper end with the palm of his hand, drew it out; the pressure of the air against the other end keeping in the water which it contained; to this end the person who wanted to drink applied his mouth, and the assistant then taking his hand from the other, and admitting the air above, the cane immediately parted with its contents, which the drinker drew off till he was satisfied.
We stood off and on along the shore till the 12th, and successively saw a remarkable hill near Santo Espirito, then Cape St. Thomas, and then an island just without Cape Frio, which in some maps is called the Island of Frio, and which being high, with a hollow in the middle, has the appearance of two islands when seen at a distance. On this day we stood along the shore for Rio de Janeiro, and at nine the next morning made sail for the harbour. I then sent Mr. Hicks, my first lieutenant, before us in the pinnace, up to the city, to acquaint the Governor, that we put in there to procure water and refreshments; and to desire the assistance of a pilot to bring us into proper anchoring-ground. I continued to stand up the river, trusting to Mr. Bellisle’s draught, published in the Petit Atlas Maritime, Vol. II. No. 54., which we found very good, till five o’clock in the evening, expecting the return of my lieutenant; and just as I was about to anchor, above the island of Cobras, which lies before the city, the pinnace came back without him, having on board a Portuguese officer, but no pilot. The people in the boat told me, that my lieutenant was detained by the Viceroy till I should go on shore. We came immediately to an anchor; and, almost at the same time, a ten-oared boat, full of soldiers, came up and kept rowing round the ship, without exchanging a word: in less than a quarter of an hour, another boat came on board with several of the Viceroy’s officers, who asked whence we came; what was our cargo; the number of men and guns on board; the object of our voyage, and several other questions, which we directly and truly answered: they then told me, as a kind of apology for detaining my lieutenant, and putting an officer on board my pinnace, that it was the invariable custom of the place, to detain the first officer who came on shore from any ship on her arrival, till a boat from the Viceroy had visited her, and to suffer no boat to go either from or to a ship, while she lay there, without having a soldier on board. They said that I might go on shore when I pleased; but wished that every other person might remain on board till the paper which they should draw up had been delivered to the Viceroy, promising that, immediately upon their return, the lieutenant should be sent on board.
This promise was performed; and on the next morning, the 14th, I went on shore, and obtained leave of the Viceroy to purchase provisions and refreshments for the ship, provided I would employ one of their own people as a factor, but not otherwise. I made some objections to this, but he insisted upon it as the custom of the place. I objected also against the putting a soldier into the boat every time she went between the ship and the shore; but he told me, that this was done by the express orders of his court, with which he could in no case dispense. I then requested, that the gentlemen whom I had on board might reside on shore during our stay, and that Mr. Banks might go up the country to gather plants; but this he absolutely refused. I judged from his extreme caution, and the severity of these restrictions, that he suspected we were come to trade; I therefore took some pains to convince him of the contrary. I told him, that we were bound to the southward, by the order of His Britannic Majesty, to observe a transit of the planet Venus over the sun, an astronomical phænomenon of great importance to navigation. Of the transit of Venus, however, he could form no other conception, than that it was the passing of the North star through the South Pole; for these are the very words of his interpreter, who was a Swede, and spoke English very well. I did not think it necessary to ask permission for the gentlemen to come on shore during the day, or that, when I was on shore myself, I might be at liberty, taking for granted that nothing was intended to the contrary; but in this I was unfortunately mistaken. As soon as I took leave of His Excellency, I found an officer who had orders to attend me wherever I went: of this I desired an explanation, and was told that it was meant as a compliment. I earnestly desired to be excused from accepting such an honour, but the good Viceroy would by no means suffer it to be dispensed with.
With this officer, therefore, I returned on board about twelve o’clock, where I was impatiently expected by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, who made no doubt but that a fair account of us having been given by the officers who had been on board the evening before, in their paper called a Practica, and every scruple of the Viceroy removed in my conference with His Excellency, they should immediately be at liberty to go on shore, and dispose of themselves as they pleased. Their disappointment at receiving my report may easily be conceived; and it was still increased by an account, that it had been resolved, not only to prevent their residing on shore, and going up the country, but even their leaving the ship; orders having been given that no person, except the captain, and such common sailors as were required to be upon duty, should be permitted to land; and that there was probably a particular view to the passengers in this prohibition, as they were reported to be gentlemen sent abroad to make observations and discoveries, and were uncommonly qualified for that purpose. In the evening, however, Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander dressed themselves, and attempted to go on shore, in order to make a visit to the Viceroy; but they were stopped by the guard-boat which had come off with our pinnace, and which kept hovering round the ship all the while she lay here, for that purpose; the officer on board saying, that he had particular orders, which he could not disobey, to suffer no passenger, nor any officer, except the captain, to pass the boat. After much expostulation to no purpose, they were obliged, with whatever reluctance and mortification, to return on board. I then went on shore myself, but found the Viceroy inflexible; he had one answer ready for every thing I could say, that the restrictions under which he had laid us were in obedience to the King of Portugal’s commands, and therefore indispensable.
In this situation I determined, rather than be made a prisoner in my own boat, to go on shore no more; for the officer who, under pretence of a compliment, attended me when I was ashore, insisted also upon going with me to and from the ship: but still imagining, that the scrupulous vigilance of the Viceroy must proceed from some mistaken notion about us, which might more easily be removed by writing than in conversation, I drew up a memorial, and Mr. Banks drew up another, which we sent on shore. These memorials were both answered, but by no means to our satisfaction; we therefore replied: in consequence of which, several other papers were interchanged between us and the Viceroy, but still without effect. However, as I thought some degree of force, on the part of the Viceroy, to enforce these restrictions, necessary to justify my acquiescence in them to the Admiralty, I gave orders to my lieutenant, Mr. Hicks, when I sent him with our last reply on Sunday the 20th, in the evening, not to suffer a guard to be put into his boat. When the officer on board the guard-boat found that Mr. Hicks was determined to obey my orders, he did not proceed to force, but attended him to the landing-place, and reported the matter to the Viceroy. Upon this His Excellency refused to receive the memorial, and ordered Mr. Hicks to return to the ship; when he came back to the boat, he found that a guard had been put on board in his absence, but he absolutely refused to return till the soldier was removed: the officer then proceeded to enforce the Viceroy’s orders; he seized all the boat’s crew, and sent them under an armed force to prison, putting Mr. Hicks, at the same time, into one of their own boats, and sending him under a guard back to the ship. As soon as he had reported these particulars, I wrote again to the Viceroy, demanding my boat and crew, and in my letter inclosed the memorial which he had refused to receive from Mr. Hicks: these papers I sent by a petty officer, that I might wave the dispute about a guard, against which I had never objected except when there was a commissioned officer on board the boat. The petty officer was permitted to go on shore with his guard, and, having delivered his letter, was told that an answer would be sent the next day.
About eight o’clock this evening it began to blow very hard in sudden gusts from the south, and our long-boat coming on board just at this time with four pipes of rum, the rope which was thrown to her from the ship, and which was taken hold of by the people on board, unfortunately broke, and the boat, which had come to the ship before the wind, went adrift to windward of her, with a small skiff of Mr. Banks’s that was fastened to her stern. This was a great misfortune, as the pinnace being detained on shore, we had no boat on board but a four-oared yawl: the yawl, however, was immediately manned and sent to her assistance; but, notwithstanding the utmost effort of the people in both boats, they were very soon out of sight: far, indeed, we could not see at that time in the evening, but the distance was enough to convince us that they were not under command, which gave us great uneasiness, as we knew they must drive directly upon a reef of rocks which ran out just to leeward of where we lay: after waiting some hours in the utmost anxiety, we gave them over for lost, but, about three o’clock the next morning, had the satisfaction to see all the people come on board in the yawl. From them we learnt, that the long-boat having filled with water they had brought her to a grappling, and left her; and that, having fallen in with the reef of rocks in their return to the ship, they had been obliged to cut Mr. Banks’s little boat adrift. As the loss of our long-boat, which we had now too much reason to apprehend, would have been an unspeakable disadvantage to us, considering the nature of our expedition, I sent another letter to the Viceroy, as soon as I thought he could be seen, acquainting him with our misfortune, and requesting the assistance of a boat from the shore for the recovery of our own; I also renewed my demand that the pinnace and her crew should be no longer detained: after some delay, His Excellency thought fit to comply both with my request and demand; and the same day we happily recovered both the long-boat and skiff, with the rum, but every thing else that was on board was lost. On the 23d, the Viceroy, in his answer to my remonstrance against seizing my men and detaining the boat, acknowledged that I had been treated with some incivility, but said that the resistance of my officers to what he had declared to be the King’s orders made it absolutely necessary; he also expressed some doubts whether the Endeavour, considering her structure and other circumstances, was in the service of His Majesty, though I had before showed him my commission: to this I answered in writing, that, to remove all scruples, I was ready to produce my commission again. His Excellency’s scruples, however, still remained, and in his reply to my letter he not only expressed them in still plainer terms, but accused my people of smuggling. This charge, I am confident, was without the least foundation in truth. Mr. Banks’s servants had indeed found means to go on shore on the 22d at day-break, and stay till it was dark in the evening, but they brought on board only plants and insects, having been sent for no other purpose. And I had the greatest reason to believe that not a single article was smuggled by any of our people who were admitted on shore, though many artful means were used to tempt them, even by the very officers that were under His Excellency’s roof, which made the charge still more injurious and provoking. I have indeed some reason to suspect that one poor fellow bought a single bottle of rum with some of the clothes upon his back; and in my answer I requested of His Excellency, that, if such an attempt at illicit trade should be repeated, he would without scruple order the offender to be taken into custody. And thus ended our altercation, both by conference and writing, with the Viceroy of Rio de Janeiro.