I gave the master of her orders to return to England as soon as he could
get ready, and with the Tamar sailed from Port Famine, intending to push
through the streight before the season should be too far advanced.[28]
At noon we were three leagues distant from Saint Anne's Point, which
bore N.W. and three or four miles distant from Point Shutup, which bore
S.S.W. Point Shutup bears from Saint Anne's Point S. 1/2 E. by the
compass, and they are about four or five leagues asunder. Between these
two points there is a flat shoal, which runs from Port Famine before
Sedger river, and three or four miles to the southward.

[Footnote 28: "At taking our leave of the store-ship, our boatswain, and
all that were sick on board the Dolphin and Tamar, obtained leave to
return in her to England; the commodore in the mean time openly
declaring to the men in general, that if any of them were averse to
proceeding on the voyage, they had free liberty to return; an offer
which only one of our men accepted."]

We steered S.S.W. with little wind along the shore, from Point Shutup
towards Cape Forward; and about three o'clock in the afternoon we passed
by the French ship, which, we saw in a little cove, about two leagues to
the southward of Point Shutup. She had hauled her stern close into the
woods, and we could see large piles of the wood which she had cut down,
lying on each side of her; so that I made no doubt of her having been
sent out to procure that necessary for their new settlement, though I
could not conceive why they should have come so far into the strait for
that purpose. After my return to England, I learnt that this vessel was
the Eagle, commanded by M. Bougainville, and that her business in the
strait was, as I conjectured, to cut wood for the French settlement in
the Falkland's Islands. From Cape Shutup to Cape Forward, the course by
compass is S.W. by S. and the distance is seven leagues. At eight