THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
343 
At noon, the latitude, by obfervation, was 50° i / ; longi- i 77 s. 
tude 229 0 26'*. I now fleered North Weft by North, with 
a frefli gale at South South Eaft, and fair weather. But 
at nine in the evening, it began again to blow hard, and 
in fqualls with rain. With fuch weather, and the wind be¬ 
tween South South Eaft aiid South Weft, I continued the 
fame courfe till the 30th, at four in the morning, when I Thurfday 30, 
fleered North by Weft, in order to make the land. I re¬ 
gretted very much indeed that I could not do it fooner, for 
this obvious reafon, that we were now palling the place 
where geographers t have placed the pretended ftrait of Ad¬ 
miral de Fonte. For my own part, I give no credit to fuch 
vague and improbable ftories, that carry their own confu¬ 
tation along with them. Neverthelefs, I was very defirous 
of keeping the American coaft aboard, in order to clear up 
this point beyond difpute. But it would have been highly 
imprudent in me, to have engaged with the land in wea¬ 
ther fo exceedingly tempeftuous, or to have loft the advan¬ 
tage of a fair wind, by waiting for better weather. This 
fame day at noon we were in the latitude of 53 0 22k and 
in the longitude of 225 0 14k 
The next morning, being the ift of May, feeing nothing May. 
of the land, I fleered North Eafterly, with a frefh breeze Fnday *' 
at South South Eaft and South, with fqualls and fhowers 
of rain and hail. Our latitude at noon was 54 0 43', and 
our longitude 224 0 44k At feven in the evening, being 
in the latitude of 55 0 20", we got light of the land, ex- 
* As in the remaining part of this Volume, the Latitude and Longitude are very 
frequently fet down; the former being invariably North, and the latter Eaft, the conftant 
repetition of the two words, North and Eaji^ has been omitted, to avoid unnecellary 
precifton. 
f See De Lille’s Carte Generale des Decouvertes de VAmiral de Fonte , &c. Paris, 
1752 5 and many other Maps. 
tending 
