We stretched to the S. E. till five o’clock in the afternoon on the 14th; at which time, being in the latitude of 43° 15ʹ, longitude 137° 39ʹ west, we tacked and stood to the north under our courses, having a very hard gale with heavy squalls, attended with rain, till near noon the next day, when it ended in a calm. At this time we were in the latitude of 42° 39ʹ, longitude 137° 58ʹ west. In the evening, the calm was succeeded by a breeze from S. W., which soon after increased to a fresh gale; and fixing at S. S. W., with it we steered N. E. 1/2 E. In the latitude of 41° 25ʹ, longitude 135° 58ʹ west, we saw floating in the sea a billet of wood, which seemed to be covered with barnacles, so that there was no judging, how long it might have been there, or from whence or how far it had come. We continued to steer N. E. 1/2 E. before a very strong gale, which blew in squalls, attended with showers of rain and hail, and a very high sea from the same quarter, till noon, on the 17th. Being then in the latitude of 39° 44ʹ, longitude 133° 32ʹ west, which was a degree and a half farther east than I had intended to run; nearly in the middle between my track to the north in 1769, and the return to the south in the same year, (as will appear by the chart) and seeing no signs of land, I steered north-easterly, with a view of exploring that part of the sea lying between the two tracts just mentioned, down as low as the latitude of 27°, a space that had not been visited by any preceding navigator that I knew of. On the 19th, being in the latitude of 36° 34ʹ, longitude 133° 7ʹ west, we steered N. 1/2 west, having still the advantage of a hard gale at south, which the next day veered to S. E. and E. blew hard and by squalls, attended with rain and thick hazy weather; this continued till the evening of the 21st, when the gale abated, the weather cleared up, and the wind backed to the S. and S. E. We were now in the latitude of 32° 30ʹ, longitude 133° 40ʹ west; from this situation we steered N. N. W. till noon the next day, when we steered a point more to the west; being at this time in the latitude of 31° 6ʹ, longitude 134° 12ʹ west. The weather was now so warm, that it was necessary to put on lighter clothes: the mercury in the thermometer at noon rose to 63; it had never been lower than 46, and seldom higher than 54, at the same time of the day, since we left New Zealand. This day was remarkable by our not seeing a single bird; not one had passed since we left the land without seeing some of the following birds, viz. albatrosses, sheer-waters, pintadoes, blue peterels, and Port Egmont hens; but these frequent every part of the Southern Ocean in the higher latitudes; not a bird, nor any other thing was seen, that could induce us to think that we had ever been in the neighbourhood of any land.