The recovery of my people made it necessary to continue here till the 6th of January 1769; in the evening of this day I set sail, and before it was dark cleared the land.

On the 20th, after a fine and pleasant passage, we made the island of Saint Helena; and set sail again on the morning of the 24th. At midnight on the 30th, we made the north east part of the Island of Ascension, and brought to till day-light, when we ran in close to it. I sent a boat out to discover the anchoring-place which is called Cross-hill Bay, while we kept running along the north east and north side of the island, till we came to the north west extremity of it, and in the afternoon anchored in the bay we sought. The way to find this place at once, is to bring the largest and most conspicuous hill upon the island to bear S.E.; when the ship is in this position, the Bay will be open, right in the middle between two other hills, the westermost of which is called Cross-hill, and gives name to the Bay. Upon this hill there is a flag-staff, which if a ship brings to bear S.S.E. ½ E. or S.E. by E. and runs in, keeping it so till she is in ten fathom water, she will be in the best part of the Bay. In our run along the north east side of the island, I observed several other small sandy bays, in some of which my boat found good anchorage, and saw plenty of turtle, though they are not so convenient as this, where we had plenty of turtle too. The beach here is a fine white sand; the landing-place is at some rocks, which lie about the middle of the Bay, and may be known by a ladder of ropes which hangs from the top to mount them by. In the evening I landed a few men to turn the turtle that should come on shore during the night, and in the morning I found that they had thus secured no less than eighteen, from four hundred to six hundred weight each, and these were as many as we could well stow on the deck. As there are no inhabitants upon this island, it is a custom for the ships that touch at it to leave a letter in a bottle, with their names and destination, the date, and a few other particulars. We complied with this custom, and in the evening of Monday the 1st of February, we weighed anchor and set sail.

Voyaging Accounts