J77& THE PACIFIC OCEAX. 143 





and we immediately tacked, and steered in for the 

 tend. At noon we had a pretty good observation, 

 which enabled us to determine the latitude of Bligh's 

 Cap, which is the northermost island, to be 48 29' 

 S., and its longitude 68 40' B.* We passed it at 

 three o'clock, standing to the S. S. E., with a fresh 

 gale at W. 



Soon after we saw the land, of which we had a 

 faint view in the morning; and at four o'clock it 

 extended from S. E. * E., to S. W. by S., distant 

 about four miles. The left extreme, which I judged 

 to be the northeren point of this land called, in the 

 French chart of the southern hemisphere, Cape St. 

 Louis t , terminated in a perpendicular rock of a 

 considerable height; and the right one (near which 



* The French and English agree very nearly (as might be ex- 

 pected) in their accounts of the latitude of this island; but the 

 observations by which they fix its longitude, vary considerably. 



The pilot at Teneriffe made it only 64 57' E. from Paris, which 

 is about 67 16' E. from London; or 1 24' more- westerly than 

 Captain Cook's observations fix it. 



Monsieur de Pages says it is 66 47' E. from Paris, that is 69 6' 

 E. from London, or twenty-six miles more easterly than it is placed 

 by Captain Cook. 



Kerguelen himself only says that it is about 68 of E. longitude, 

 par 68 de longitude. 



f Hitherto, we have only had occasion to supply defects, owing 

 to Captain Cook's entire ignorance of Kerguelen's second voyage 

 in 1773; we must now correct errors, owing to his very limited 

 knowledge of the operations of the first voyage in 1772. The chart 

 of the southern hemisphere, his only guide, having given him, as 

 he tells us, the name of Cape St. Louis (or Cape Louis) as the most 

 northerly promontory then seen by the French ; and his own ob- 

 servations now satisfying him that uo part of the main land stretched 

 further N. than the left extreme now before him ; from this supposed 

 similarity of situation, he judged that his own perpendicular rock 

 must be the Cape Lewis of the first discoverers. By looking upon 

 our chart, we shall find Cape Louis lying upon a very different part 

 of the coast ; and by comparing this chart with that lately published 

 by Kerguelen, it will appear, in the clearest manner, that the 

 northern point now described by Captain Cook, is the very same 

 to which the French have given the name of Cape Francois. 



