fatigue, which was much increased by their having no dry place to sleep in;
and on this account we began to serve their full allowance of grog.

The weather now becoming more moderate, and the swell less heavy, we were
enabled to clear away the rest of the casks from the fore-hold, and to open
a sufficient passage for the water to the pumps. This day we saw a greenish
piece of drift-wood, and fancying the water coloured, we sounded, but got
no bottom with a hundred and sixty fathoms of line. Our latitude at noon
this day was 41° 52', longitude 161° 15', variation 6° 30' E.; and the wind
soon after veering to the northward, we altered our course three points to
the west.

On the 16th at noon, we were in the latitude of 42° 12', and in the
longitude of 160° 5'; and as we were now approaching the place where a
great extent of land is said to have been seen by De Gama, we were glad of
the opportunity which the course we were steering gave, of contributing to
remove the doubts, if any should be still entertained, respecting the
falsehood of this pretended discovery. For it is to be observed, that no
one has ever yet been able to find who John de Gama was, when he lived, or
what year this pretended discovery was made.

According to Mr Muller, the first account of it given to the public was in
a chart published by Texeira, a Portuguese geographer, in 1649, who places
it ten or twelve degrees to the north-east of Japan, between the latitudes
of 44° and 45°; and announces it to be _land seen by John de Gama, the
Indian, in a voyage from China to New Spain_. On what grounds the French
geographers have since removed it five degrees to the eastward, does not
appear; except we suppose it to have been done in order to make room for
another discovery made by the Dutch, called _Company's Land_; of which we
shall have occasion to speak hereafter.