280 
A VOYAGE TO 
1779. 
Auguft. 
1 - — -J 
Sunday 22. 
its lying behind the Nofs, bearing North Weft by North, 
twenty-five or thirty leagues diftant. At noon, the co'aft 
extended from North by Eaft to Weft, with a very great ha- 
zinefs upon it, and diftant about tw T elve leagues. We had 
light airs the remaining part of this and the following day, 
and got no foundings with one hundred and forty fathoms 
of line. 
On the 22d of Auguft, 1779, at nine o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing, departed this life Captain Charles Clerke, in the thirty- 
eighth year of his age. He died of a confumption, which 
had evidently commenced before he left England, and of 
which he had lingered during the whole voyage. His very 
gradual decay had long made him a melancholy objeft to 
his friends ; yet the equanimity with which he bore it, the 
conftant flow of good fpirits, which continued to the laft 
hour, and a cheerful refignation to his fate, afforded them 
fome confolation. It was impoflible not to feel a more than 
common degree of companion for a perfon, whofe life had 
been a continued fcene of thofe difficulties and hardfhips, to 
which a feaman’s occupation is fubjedt, and under which 
he at laft funk. He was brought up to the Navy from his 
earlieft youth*' and had been in feveral acftions during the 
war which began in 1756, particularly in that between the 
Bellona and Courageux, where being ftationed in the mizen- 
top, he was carried overboard with the maft, but was taken 
up without having received any hurt. He was Midfhipman 
in the Dolphin, commanded by Commodore Byron, on her 
firft voyage round the world, and afterward ferved on the 
American ftation. In 1768, he made his fecond voyage 
round the world, in the Endeavour, as Mafter’s Mate, and 
by the promotion, which took place during the expedition, 
he returned a Lieutenant. His third voyage round the 
world 
