( 3% ) 



ed a pretty large ifland and well- wooded in fe- 

 veral places, which made us conclude it was 

 the Grand Caicos, and confequently that we were 

 forty or fifty leagues too far to the weftward. 

 To gain our longitude, we mud, perhaps, have 

 been obliged to fleer two or three hundred 

 leagues to the northward, and laid our account 

 with a voyage of five or fix weeks. But this 

 was impracticable ; for we had fcarce water 

 and provifions for fifteen days, with the great- 

 eft ceconomy. The captain was prodigioufly 

 embarrafTed, he faw his pilots in the fault, he 

 had reafon to reproach himfelf with having re- 

 pofed too much confidence in them, and not 

 having taken an obfervation himfelf, and with 

 having conttantly preferred the opinion of the fe- 

 cond pilot, a young blundering prefumptuous 

 Fellow, to that of the firft, who was a much abler 

 and more experienced feaman, and never had ap- 

 proved their management. 



It was, in the mean time, necefTary to take a 

 refolution on the fpot : had we met with a 

 gale of wind at north, it would have thrown us 

 upon thefe low lands, where we muft all have 

 infallibly perifhed. But as no meafure could 

 be pitched upon which had not its inconve- 

 niencies, the captain rcfolved to have the ad- 

 vice of all the people. One propofed a fafe 

 expedient, which was to bear away before the 

 wind for Carolina, where we could arrive in ten 

 or twelve days, and there purchafe provifions. 

 This advice was rejected and another followed, 

 which put all to the hazard, and feemed to me 

 to be folely infpired by defpair ; and this was to 



coaft, 



