The harbour of Rio de Janeiro is certainly a very good one: the Entrance is not wide but the Sea breeze which blows every morning makes it easy for any ship to go in before the wind, and when you get abreast the town it increases in breadth prodigiously so that almost any number of ships might lay in 5 or 6 fathom water oozey bottom. It is defended by many works, especialy the entrance where it is narrow, there is their strongest fortification calld Sta Cruz and another opposite it; there is also a platform mounting about 22 gunns without that just under the Sugar Loaf on the sea side, but that seems intirely calculated to hinder the Landing of an Enemy in a sandy bay from whence there is a passage to the back part

Voyaging Accounts