while on board her saw a common house martin flying about the ship.
29th. Fresh trade, which quickly relieved everybody from the depression of spirits, etc, which is the constant companion of the damp calms we have now passed through.
1st June. Saw some gulph-weed to-day for the first time.
3rd. This day passed under the sun, and were for the last time ascii.[1]
5th. Less gulph-weed than yesterday, so we began to catch it by means of a pole with six large hooks fastened at the end. Out of it we took Scyllæa pelagica, Medusa porpita, Syngnathus pelagicus, Lophius pelagicus, and Cancer minutus.
6th. More gulph-weed, in which took up several individuals of the afore-mentioned species, besides which were caught Cancer pelagicus, and a shrimp not described. Several tropic birds were seen, all of which flew in a straight line towards the coast of Africa.
18th. Saw three New England schooners cruising for whales: sent a boat on board one, who told us that she had yesterday spoken to an outward-bound Englishman, who had said that all was peace in Europe, and that the Spaniards had agreed to pay the Manilla ransom with interest for one year, and a million of dollars for damages done at Falkland's Islands.
This vessel had by their own account been out five weeks and caught nothing: they had chased a whale sixty leagues into Fayal harbour, where they could not follow it, as the Portuguese suffer no whaler to go into any of their ports in the Western Islands.[2] They had, they said, no meat on board, but lived upon what they could catch. They readily sold us four large albecores, saying that they could catch more. As for American news, King George, they said, had behaved very ill for some time, but the colonists had brought him to terms at last.
