ourselves as we pleased, having the good fortune, at this time, to have nothing to do with the governor or his fort. The town is but a poor little place; there are, indeed, a good many storehouses built by the water side for the reception of goods from the shipping. About the 20th of December, 1744, we embarked on board the Lys frigate, belonging to St. Malo. She was a ship of four hundred and twenty tons, sixteen guns, and sixty men. She had several passengers on board; and amongst the rest, Don George Juan, a man of very superior abilities, (and since that time well known in England) who, with Don Antonio Ulloa, had been several years in Peru, upon a design of measuring some degrees of the meridian near the equator. We were now bound to Conception, in order to join three other French ships that were likewise bound home. As this was a time of the year when the southerly winds prevail upon this coast, we stood off a long way to the westward, making the island of Juan Fernandez. We did not get into the bay of Conception till the 6th of January, 1745, where we anchored at Talcaguana, and there found the Louis Erasme, the Marquis d'Antin, and the Delivrance, the three French ships that we were to accompany. It is but sixty leagues from Valparaiso to Conception, though we had been so long making this passage; but there is no beating up, near the shore, against the southerly wind, which is the trade at this season, as you are sure to have a lee-current; so that the quickest way of making a passage is to stand off a hundred and twenty or thirty leagues from the land.