could enable us to compleat so extensive a navigation. For our deaths were by this time extremely alarming, no day passing in which we did not bury eight or ten, and sometimes twelve, of our men; and those who had as yet continued healthy began to fall down apace. Indeed we made the best use we could of our present calm, by employing our carpenters in searching after the leak, which, notwithstanding the little wind we had, was now considerable. The carpenters at length discovered it to be in the gunner's fore store-room, where the water rushed in under the breast-hook on each side of the stern: but though they found where it was, they agreed it was impossible to stop it till they could come at it on the outside, which was evidently a matter not to be attempted till we should arrive in port. However, they did the best they could within board, and were fortunate enough to reduce it, which was a considerable relief to us. We hitherto considered the calm which succeeded the storm, and which had now continued for some days, as a very great misfortune, since the currents were all the time driving us to the northward of our parallel, and we thereby risqued the missing of the Ladrones, which we at present conceived ourselves to be very near. But when a gale sprung up our condition was still worse; for it blew from the S.W., and consequently was directly opposed to the course we wanted to steer: and though it soon veered to the N.E., yet this served only to tantalize us, as it returned back again in a very short time to its old quarter. However, on the 22d of August we had the satisfaction to find that the current was shifted, and had set us to the southward; and the 23d, at daybreak, we were cheered with the discovery of two islands in the western board. This gave us all great joy, and raised our drooping spirits, for till then an universal dejection had seized us, and we almost despaired of ever seeing land again. The nearest of these islands, as we learnt afterwards, was Anatacan; this we judged to be full fifteen leagues from us; it seemed to be high land, though of an indifferent length. The other was the island of Serigan, which had rather the appearance of a rock than of a place we could hope to anchor at. We were extremely impatient to get in with the nearest island, where we expected to find anchoring ground and an opportunity of refreshing our sick. But the wind proved so {277} variable all day, and there was so little of it that we advanced towards it but slowly; however, by the next morning we were got so far to the westward that we were in sight of a third island, which was that of Paxaros, and which is marked in the chart only as a rock. This was very small, and the land low, so that we had passed within less than a mile of it in the night without observing it. At noon, being then not four miles from the island of Anatacan, the boat was sent away to examine the anchoring ground and the produce of