A supply of water and other necessaries could not be refused him, and those were gotten on board by the 1st of December.

On that day the lieutenant sent to the viceroy for a pilot to carry the Endeavour to sea; but the wind preventing the ship from getting out, she was obliged to continue some time longer in the harbour.

A Spanish packet having arrived at Rio de Janeiro on the 2d of December, with dispatches from Buenos Ayres for Spain, the commander, Don Antonio de Monte Negro y Velasco, offered, with great politeness, to convey the letters of the English to Europe.

This favour Lieutenant Cook accepted, and gave Don Antonio a packet for the secretary of the Admiralty, containing copies of all the papers that had passed between himself and the Viceroy.

He left, also, duplicates with the viceroy, that he might forward them, if he thought proper, to Lisbon.
On the 5th of December, it being a dead calm, our navigators weighed anchor, and towed down the Bay; but, to their great astonishment, two shots were fired at them; when they had gotten abreast of Santa Cruz, the principal fortification of the harbour.