t was sent away to examine the anchoring ground and the produce of
the place, and we were not a little solicitous for her return, as we then
conceived our fate to depend upon the report we should receive; for the
other two islands were obviously enough incapable of furnishing us with
any assistance, and we knew not then that there were any others which we
could reach. In the evening the boat came back, and the crew informed us
that there was no place for a ship to anchor.

This account of the impossibility of anchoring at this island occasioned
a general melancholy on board, for we considered it as little less than
the prelude to our destruction; and now the only possible circumstance
that could secure the few that remained alive from perishing was the
accidental falling in with some other of the Ladrone Islands better
prepared for our accommodation, and as our knowledge of these islands was
extremely imperfect, we were to trust entirely to chance for our
guidance; only, as they are all of them usually laid down near the same
meridian, and we had conceived those we had already seen to be part of
them, we concluded to stand to the southward as the most probable means
of falling in with the next. Thus, with the most gloomy persuasion of our
approaching destruction, we stood from the island of Anatacan, having all
of us the strongest apprehensions either of dying of the scurvy or
perishing with the ship, which, for want of hands to work her pumps,
might in a short time be expected to founder.

TINIAN.

It was the 26th of August, 1742, in the morning, when we lost sight of
Anatacan. The next morning we discovered three other islands to the
eastward, which were from ten to fourteen leagues from us. These were, as
we afterwards learned, the islands of Saypan, Tinian and Aguigan. We
immediately steered towards Tinian, which was the middle-most of the
three, but had so much of calms and light airs, that though we were
helped forwards by the currents, yet next day at daybreak we were at
least five leagues distant from it. However, we kept on our course, and
about ten in the morning we perceived a proa under sail to the southward,
between Tinian and Aguigan. As we imagined from hence that these islands
were inhabited, and knew that the Spaniards had always a force at Guam,
we took the necessary precautions for our own security and for preventing
the enemy from taking advantage of our present wretched circumstances, of
which the