On the 22d, we were got into latitude 18°S., longitude 161°W., which was about one thousand eight hundred leagues to the westward of the continent of America, and in all this track we had no indication of a continent. The men now began to be very sickly, the scurvy having made great progress among them, and as I found that all my endeavours to keep in a high southern latitude at this time were ineffectual, and that the badness of the weather, the variableness of the winds, and above all, the defects of the ship, rendered our progress slow, I thought it absolutely necessary to fix upon that course which was most likely to preserve the vessel and the crew; instead therefore of attempting to return back by the south-east, in which, considering our condition, and the advanced season of the year, it was scarcely possible that we should succeed, I bore away to the northward, that I might get into the trade-wind, keeping still in such a track, as if the charts were to be trusted, was most likely to bring me to some island, where the refreshments of which we stood so much in need might be procured intending then, if the ship could be put in a proper condition, to have pursued the voyage to the southward, when the fit season should return, to have attempted farther discoveries in this track; and, if I should discover a continent, and procure a sufficient supply of provisions there, to keep along the coast to the southward till the sun had crossed the equinoctial, and then, getting into a high southern latitude, either have gone west about to the Cape of Good Hope, or returned to the eastward, and having touched at Falkland's Islands, if necessary, made the best of my way from thence back to Europe.