108 REMARKS ON 



1824. sail south-west. I had kept on this course, as 

 Sept. I before said, in order to clear the "narrows/* 

 in which another gale would, in our present 

 helpless state, have been destniction to us. 



It was now but too evident that we could no 

 longer expect to pass up the Welcome, or in- 

 deed to approach any coast on which there 

 was a probability of our requiring to anchor ; 

 more particularly as the shores we had hither- 

 to seen, had not a single bay or indentation in 

 them, much less a place of sufficient security 

 to allow of our anchoring in it with a stream. 

 The Wager alone is an exception to this ; but 

 the influence of its tides, which, according to 

 Middleton, run five, and as is asserted by Ellis, 

 eight or nine * knots, is felt for many miles 

 above the entrance, and as the Griper s best 

 sailing never exceeded six knots, it is hardly 

 probable, even allowing she had the fairest 

 wind, to suppose she could hold her own 

 against the tide ; and having no anchors, she 

 was of course unable to approach the shores for 

 the purpose of tiding it up. Douglas' Harbour 

 and Deer Sound, are thirty and twenty leagues 

 up the inlet, and if the gales in the former 

 were strong enough to drive the California 

 from her two anchors and put her in great 



* Pp. 249, 250. London Edit. 174S. 



