been
equally favourable to our Buccaneers, who used sometimes to pass from
the coast of America to the Ladrones, with a stock of food and water
scarcely sufficient to preserve life. Here they might always have
found plenty, and have been within a month's sure sail of the very
part of California, which the Manilla ship is obliged to make, or else
have returned to the coast of America, thoroughly refitted, after an
absence of two months. How happy would Lord Anson have been, and what
hardships would he have avoided, if he had known that there was a
group of islands half way between America and Tinian, where all his
wants could have been effectually supplied; and in describing which,
the elegant historian of that voyage would have presented his reader
with a more agreeable picture than I have been able to draw in this
chapter![5]

[Footnote 5: We defer considering the curious subject of the identity
and origin of the people that inhabit the South Sea, till other
relations shall have put the reader in possession of the facts
requisite for the discussion. Of the Sandwich Islands, we shall
hereafter probably have mere complete information than is now
given.--E.]

SECTION XIII.

_Observations made at the Sandwich Islands, on the Longitude,
Variation of the Compass and Tides.--Prosecution of the
Voyage.--Remarks on the Mildness of the Weather, as far as
the Latitude 44 deg. North.--Paucity of Sea Birds, in the Northern
Hemisphere.--Small Sea Animals described.--Arrival on the Coast
of America.--Appearance of the Country.--Unfavourable Winds and
boisterous Weather.--Remarks on Martin de Aguilar's River, and Juan
de Fuca's pretended Strait.--An Inlet discovered, where the Ships
anchor.--Behaviour of the Natives._

After the Discovery had joined us, we stood away to the northward,
close hauled, with a gentle gale from the east; and nothing occurring,
in this situation, worthy of a place in my narrative, the reader
will permit me to insert here the nautical observations which I had
opportunities of making relative to the islands we had left; and which
we had been fortunate enough to add to the geography of this part of
the Pacific Ocean.

The longitude of the Sandwich Islands was determined by seventy-two
sets of lunar observations; some of which were made while we were at
anchor in the road of Wymoa; others before we arrived, and after we
left it, and reduced to it by the watch or time-keeper. By the mean
result of the