being
within the limits of the Company's charter, from the expectation of our
examinations and discoveries proving advantageous to their commerce and
the eastern navigation, and partly, as they said, for my former services.

On the 26th, I received orders to proceed round to Spithead; but the
winds being generally from the westward, we did not arrive there before
the 2nd of June. A circumstance occurred during the passage, which,
amongst many others, showed the necessity there was for a regulation
since adopted, to furnish His Majesty's ships with correct charts. No
master had been appointed to the Investigator; nor was any officer on
board intimately acquainted with the navigation of the Channel; and
having been most of my life engaged in foreign voyages, I was under the
necessity, after leaving the pilot in the Downs, to trust almost wholly
to my chart, which was that of Mr. J. H. Moore. In working up under
Dungeness, on the evening of May 28, we made a trip in shore, towards the
town of Hythe, as I supposed from the chart. A little after six, the
officer of the watch had reported our distance from the land to be near
two leagues; and there being from 10 to 14 fathoms marked within two or
three miles of it, and no mention of any shoal lying in the way, I
intended to stand on half an hour longer; but in ten minutes, felt the
ship lifting upon a bank. The sails were immediately thrown aback; and
the weather being fine and water smooth, the ship was got off without
having received any apparent injury.

This sand is laid down in the Admiralty charts, under the name of the
_Roar_; and extends from Dungeness towards Folkstone, at the distance of
from two and a half, to four miles from the land. The leadsman, having
found no bottom with 15 fathoms at ten minutes before six, had very
culpably quitted the chains when his watch was out, without taking
another cast of the lead; and the ship, in going at the rate of two knots
and three-quarters, was upon the bank at twenty minutes after six; so
that it appears to be steep on the east side.

The bearings given by the azimuth compass, whilst the ship was aground,
were as under:

Dungeness light house, S. W.
Lidd church W. by S. 1/2 S.
Town of Dim, but taken to be Hythe, N. W. by N.
Cheriton church, then supposed to be Folkstone, E. N. E.
Cliffy eastern extreme of the land, near Dover, E. 1/2 N.