And now after all our solicitude, and the numerous ills of every kind to which we had been incessantly exposed for near forty days, we had great consolation in the flattering hopes we entertained that our fatigues were drawing to a period, and that we should soon arrive in a more hospitable climate, where we should be amply repayed for all our past sufferings. For, towards the latter end of March, we were advanced, by our reckoning, near 10° to the westward of the westernmost point of Terra del Fuego, and this allowance being double what former navigators have thought necessary to be taken, in order to compensate the drift of the western current, we esteemed ourselves to be well advanced within the limits of the southern ocean, and had therefore been ever since standing to the northward with as much expedition as the turbulence of the weather and our frequent disasters permitted. And, on the 13th of April, we were but a degree in latitude to the southward of the west entrance of the Streights of Magellan; so that we fully expected, in a very few days, to have experienced the celebrated tranquillity of the Pacifick Ocean. But these were delusions which only served to render our disappointment more terrible; for the next morning, between one and two, as we were standing to the northward, and the weather, which had till then been hazy, accidentally cleared up, the pink made a signal for seeing land right ahead; and {84} it being but two miles distant, we were all under the most dreadful apprehensions of running on shore, which, had either the wind blown from its usual quarter with its wonted vigour, or had not the moon suddenly shone out, not a ship amongst us could possibly have avoided: but the wind, which some few hours before blew in squalls from the S.W., having fortunately shifted to W.N.W., we were enabled to stand to the southward, and to clear ourselves of this unexpected danger, and were fortunate enough by noon to have gained an offing of near twenty leagues.