Early the next morning, the carpenters were set at work to caulk the ship all over, and put every thing in repair as far as possible. All the sails were also got on shore, and the sail-makers employed to mend them: the armourers at the same time were busy in repairing the iron-work, and making new chains for the rudder. The number of people now on shore, sick and well, was fifty-three.

In this place we got beef, pork, poultry, papaw apples, bread-fruit, limes, oranges, and every refreshment that is mentioned in the account of Lord Anson’s voyage. The sick began to recover from the day they first went on shore: the air, however, was so different here from what we found it in King George’s Island, that flesh meat, which there kept sweet two days, could here be scarcely kept sweet one. There had been many cocoa-nut trees near the landing-place, but they had been all wastefully cut down for the fruit, and none being grown up in their stead, we were forced to go three miles into the country before a single nut could be procured. The hunters also suffered incredible fatigue, for they were frequently obliged to go ten or twelve miles through one continued thicket, and the cattle were so wild that it was very difficult to come near them, so that I was obliged to relieve one party by another; and it being reported that cattle were more plenty at the North end of the island, but that the hunters being quite exhausted with fatigue when they got thither, were not able to kill them, much less to bring them down, I sent Mr. Gore, with fourteen men, to establish themselves in that part of the island, and ordered that a boat should go every morning, at day-break, to bring in what they should kill. In the mean time, the ship was laid by the stern to get at some of the copper sheathing which had been much torn; and in repairing the copper, the carpenter discovered and stopped a large leak under the lining of the knee of the head, by which we had reason to hope most of the water that the vessel had lately admitted in bad weather, came in. During our stay here, I ordered all the people on shore by turns, and by the 15th of October, all the sick being recovered, our wood and water completed, and the ship made fit for the sea, we got evrything off the shore, and embarked all our men from the watering-place, each having, at least, five hundred limes, and there being several tubs full on the quarter-deck, for every one to squeeze into his water as he should think fit.

At break of day, on Friday the 16th, we weighed, and sailed out of the bay, sending the boats at the same time to the North end of the island, to bring Mr. Gore and his hunters. At noon, we received them and their tents on board, with a fine bull which they had just killed.

While we lay at anchor in this place, we had many observations for the latitude and longitude, from which we drew up the following table:

We continued a westerly course, inclining somewhat to the North, till the 21st, when, Tinian bearing S. 71° 40’ E. distant 277 leagues, we saw many birds; and the next day, saw three resembling gannets, of the same kind that we had seen when we were within about thirty leagues of Tinian.

Voyaging Accounts