( 80 ) 



it was impofilble we could ever be got off. The 

 difficulty was to know where we were. We were, 

 however, certain that we were not in 45 deg. the 

 evening before. The queftion was, were we more 

 to the north or fouth ? And on this there were dif- 

 ferent opinions. One of our officers aflured us, 

 that the land which appeared before us was Aca- 

 dia ; that he had formerly made a voyage thither, 

 and that he knew it again ; another maintained that 

 it was the iflands of St. Peter. But what reafon is 

 there to think, faid others to him, we are fo far ad- 

 vanced ? It is not yet twenty-four hours fince we 

 wpre upon the great bank, and it is more than an 

 hundred leagues from the great bank, to the iflands 

 of St. Peter. The pilot Chaviteau pretended, that 

 it was Cape Race. That there is fome error in our 

 reckoning, faid he, there is not the leaft doubt, and 

 we ought not to wonder at it, it being impofiible 

 to keep an exa& account in the way of currents 

 which we are not acquainted with, and which are 

 continually changing, and efpecially as we had not 

 the benefit of taking the latitude to fet us to rights. 

 But it is paft the bounds of all probability that 

 we fhould eithejr be on the coaft of Acadia, or at 

 the iflands of St. Peter *. 



His reafoning appeared juft to us, we could, 

 however, have wifhed he had been miflaken, for 

 we knew how difagreeable a thing it was to be en- 



* In 1725, the fame Chaviteau committed a blunder much 

 moFe fatal. He was then likewife king's pilot on board the 

 Camel, and having been feveral days without taking the lati- 

 tude in the night of the 25th of Auguft, this fhip ftruck upon 

 a rock near Louifburgh in the illand of Cape-Breton, and ever/ 

 foul on board peiimed. It appeared by the journals that had 

 been kept on board, and which were found afterwards, that 

 they believed themielves ftill feventy leagues from that ifland. 



tangM 



