For this purpose he sailed along the coast, in quest of a commodious harbour, and, on May 13, discovered a bay, which seemed not improper for their purpose, but which they durst not enter, till it was examined; an employment in which Drake never trusted any, whatever might be his confidence in his followers on other occasions. He well knew how fatal one moment's inattention might be, and how easily almost every man suffers himself to be surprised by indolence and security. He knew the same credulity, that might prevail upon him to trust another, might induce another to commit the same office to a third; and it must be, at length, that some of them would be deceived. He, therefore, as at other times, ordered the boat to be hoisted out, and, taking the line into his hand, went on sounding the passage, till he was three leagues from his ship; when, on a sudden, the weather changed, the skies blackened, the winds whistled, and all the usual forerunners of a storm began to threaten them; nothing was now desired but to return to the ship, but the thickness of the fog intercepting it from their sight, made the attempt little other than desperate. By so many unforeseen accidents is prudence itself liable to be embarrassed! So difficult is it, sometimes, for the quickest sagacity, and most enlightened experience, to judge what measures ought to be taken! To trust another to sound an unknown coast, appeared to Drake folly and presumption; to be absent from his fleet, though but for an hour, proved nothing less than to hazard the success of all their labours, hardships, and dangers. In this perplexity, which Drake was not more sensible of than those whom he had left in the ships, nothing was to be omitted, however dangerous, that might contribute to extricate them from it, as they could venture nothing of equal value with the life of their general. Captain Thomas, therefore, having the lightest vessel, steered boldly into the bay, and taking the general aboard, dropped anchor, and lay out of danger, while the rest, that were in the open sea, suffered much from the tempest, and the Mary, a Portuguese prize, was driven away before the wind; the others, as soon as the tempest was over, discovering, by the fires which were made on shore, where Drake was, repaired to him.