22d of November, they left the ship, with as gloomy a prospect before
them as can well be imagined. The nearest land was about one thousand
miles to the windward of them; they were in open boats, weak and leaky,
with a very small pittance of bread and water for support of so many
men, during the time they must necessarily be at sea. Sails had been
prepared for the boats, before leaving the ship, which proved of
material benefit. Steering southerly by the wind, they hoped to fall in
with some ship, but in this they were disappointed. After being in the
boat twenty-eight days, experiencing many sufferings by gales of wind,
want of water, and scanty provisions, they arrived at Duncie's Island,
latitude 24° 40' S., longitude 124° 40' W., where they were disappointed
in not finding a sufficiency of any kind of food for so large a company
to subsist on. Their boats being very weak and leaky, they were hauled
on shore and repaired. They found a gentle spring of fresh water,
flowing out of a rock, at about half ebb of the tide, from which they
filled their kegs. Three of the men chose to stay on the island, and
take their chance for some vessel to take them off.

On the 27th of December, they left this island, and steered for Easter
Island; but passed it far to the leeward. They then directed their
course for Juan Fernandez, which was about twenty-five hundred miles
east by south-east from them. On the 10th of January, 1821, Matthew P.
Joy, the second mate, died, and his body was launched into the deep. His
constitution was slender, and it was supposed that his sufferings,
though great, were not the immediate cause of his death. On the 12th,
the mate's boat separated from the other two, and did not fall in with
them afterwards. The situation of the mate and his crew, became daily
more and more distressing. The weather was mostly calm, the sun hot and
scorching. They were growing weaker and weaker by want of food, and yet,
such was their distance from land, that they were obliged to lessen