Batavia (Jakarta), Indonesia

We arrived in Batavia port (today’s Jakarta) in October 1770, all but 10 of the 94 people aboard had been taken ill with malaria and dysentery – including me. By the time we set sail on 26 December, seven of my crew members died and another forty were too sick to attend to their duties. We lost a lot of seaman in the next weeks, a further 23 died from disease, including Green – the astronomer and Parkinson – the history draughtsman. At one particularly desperate stage after we left Batavia, there were only twelve people fit to work the on the ship and even we twelve were in a poor state of health.

Jack the Sailor and he's crew is on the way back home. Can you imagine the distance of the last route? The journey leads over the Cape of Good Hope back to the starting point in England.