OF LA PEROUSE. 263 



The Efperance did not weigh her anchor 

 quickly enough to take advantage of the breeze : 

 it fell calm almofl as foon as fhe had loofcd her 

 fails, and the currents drifted her towards the 

 breakers that lie on the ftarboard hand, in going 

 out of the harbour; fhe was therefore obliged to 

 drop an anchor, and wait for a wind to extricate 

 her from this dangerous iituation. 



We hove to, in hopes that ere long fhe would 

 join us ; but it was half pafl four o'clock before 

 (he came up with our (hip. Her captain then 

 informed us, that they had like to have been 

 loll at the mouth of the harbour we had juft 

 quitted. Forced by the currents to anchor on a 

 bottom of coral, the cable had been cut by the 

 rocks, at the moment when there fprang up, 

 from the fouth-eaft, the light breeze which car- 

 ried them clear of the reefs. They had come too 

 near them to let go a fecond anchor to any pur- 

 ppfe ; however, the Efperance got off, with the 

 lofs of an anchor and about eight fathoms of 

 cable. 



Our fituation enabled us to afcertain, that St. 

 George's Channel is not more than from fix. to 

 feven myriameters in breadth at its fouthern ex- 

 tremity. It appears that the gloominefs of the 

 weather had led Carteret into an error, when he 

 fuppofed that its extent was almoft twice as 

 mu^h. 



s 4 We 



