s, 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 Anatacon, having all of us the strongest
apprehensions (and those not ill founded) either of dying of the
scurvy, or of perishing with the ship, which, for want of hands to
work her pumps, might in a short time be expected to founder.

SECTION XXV.

_Our Arrival at Tinian, and an Account of the Island, and of our
Proceedings there, till the Centurion drove out to Sea._

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 learnt, the islands of Saypan, Tinian, and Aguigan.
We immediately steered towards Tinian, which was the middlemost 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 day-break, 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 they would be sufficiently informed
by the manner of our working the ship; we therefore mustered all our
hands, who were capable of standing to their arms, and loaded our
upper and quarter-deck guns with grape-shot; and, that we might the
more readily procure some intelligence of the state of these
islands, we showed Spanish colours, and hoisted a red flag at the
fore-top-masthead, to give our ship the appearance of the Manilla
galleon, hoping thereby to decoy some of the inhabitants on board us.
Thus preparing ourselves, and standing towards the land, we were near
enough, at three in the afternoon, to send the cutter in shore, to
find out a proper