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they have nevertheless some advantages in their situation among morasses, where the roads, which are almost universaly a bank thrown up between a canal and a ditch, might easily be destroyd and consequently the bringing of heavy artillery very much retarded, unless they could be got upon some canal and a sufficient number of proper boats securd to transport them, of which there are plenty, but they all muster every night under the very guns of the Castle from whence it would be impossible to take them. Delays howsoever, from whatever cause they might happen, would be inevitably fatal: in less than a week we were sensible of the unhealthyness of the climate, and in a months time one half of the ships company were unable to perform their duty; but could a very small body of men get soon to the walls of Batavia bringing with them a few Battering cannon, the town must inevitably yeild on account of the weakness of its defence. We were told that
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 437, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-363.html