[3] Captain Cheap has been suspected of a design of going on the Spanish coast without the Commodore; but no part of his conduct seems to authorise, in the least, such a suspicion. The author who brings this heavy charge against him, is equally mistaken in imagining that Captain Cheap had not instructions to sail to this island, and that the Commodore did neither go nor send thither, to inform himself if any of the squadron were there. This appears from the orders delivered to the captains of the squadron, the day before they sailed from St. Catherine's (L. Anson's Voyage, B.I.C. 6.); from the orders of the council of war held on board the Centurion, in the bay of St. Julian, (C. 7.); and from the conduct of the Commodore (C. 10.) who cruized (with the utmost hazard) more than a fortnight off the isle of Socoro, and along the coast in its neighbourhood. It was the second rendezvous at Baldivia, and not that at Socoro, that the Commodore was forced by necessity to neglect.
[4] Chiloe is an island on the western coast of America, about the 43rd deg. of S. latitude; and the southernmost settlement under the Spanish jurisdiction on that coast.
[5] There are two very different disorders incident to the human body, which bear the same name, derived from some resemblance they hold with different parts of the animal so well known in the countries to which these disorders are peculiar. That which was first so named is the leprosy, which brings a scurf on the skin not unlike the hide of an elephant. The other affects the patient with such enormous swellings of the legs and feet, that they give the idea of those shapeless pillars which support that creature; and therefore this disease has also been called elephantiasis by the Arabian physicians; who, together with the Malabarians, among whom it is endemial, attribute it to the drinking bad waters, and the too sudden transitions from heat to cold.
Transcriber's Notes:
Maintained original spelling, hypenation and punctuation.
Obvious printer errors have been corrected.