A DISAPPOINTMENT. 
332 
men received with indescribable eagerness and joy. 
The seamen who conveyed these supplies returned 
to the ship, and we kept on our way. We did 
not, however, hear of their arrival; and as we re¬ 
mained nearly six months in Sydney after this time, 
and received no tidings of them, it is probable their 
crazy bark was wrecked, or foundered during a 
heavy storm, that came on in the course of the fol¬ 
lowing day. 
The wind from the south continued fresh and 
favourable, and in the forenoon of the next day we 
sailed towards the shore, under the influence of 
exhilarated spirits, and the confident expectation 
of landing in Port Jackson before sunset. About 
noon we found ourselves near enough the coast to 
distinguish different objects along the shore, and 
soon discovered the flag-staff erected on one of the 
heads leading to Sydney, our port of destination, 
about four miles distant from us, but rather to 
windward. The captain and officers being strangers 
to the port, some time was spent in scanning the 
coast, in the hope of finding an opening still farther 
northward ; but at twelve o'clock our apprehensions 
of having missed our port were confirmed, as the 
latitude was then found, by an observation of the 
sun, to be four miles to the northward of Sydney 
heads. We had, in fact, sailed with a strong but 
favourable wind, four miles past the harbour which 
we ought to have entered. Hope, which had 
beamed in every eye, and lighted up every coun¬ 
tenance with anticipated pleasure, when we first 
neared the land, had alternated with fear, or given 
way to most intense anxiety, when we witnessed 
the uncertainty that prevailed among our com¬ 
panions, as to our actual situation; but disappoint¬ 
ment the most distressing was now strongly marked 
