to the eastward, we tacked in the above longitude, and latitude
6° 48' north, and stood to the westward; for the wind now
appeared fixed between south-west and south, a steady gale with a
large sea from the southward; many of the convoy sailed so heavy,
and were so leewardly, that to gain ground thus circumstanced was
impossible; we had therefore only to hope, that by standing off
to a greater distance from the coast of Africa, we might find the
wind incline to the eastward of south: we, therefore, kept
working in this manner for twelve days, in the course of which
time our dead reckonings were four° to the westward of the
truth, occasioned by the the strong easterly currents; in the
latitude of 4° 30' north, and longitude, by the time-keeper,
19° 40' west, the wind began to incline to the
south-south-east, which gave us some reason to hope that the
south-east trade wind was at no great distance.

It continued wavering between the south by east and south-east
until we had got another degree to the southward, when it settled
at south-east a steady breeze; but the easterly current, which
would now have been an advantage to us by keeping the transports
to windward, had ceased, and we found a strong westerly one
running for several days, from 30 to 45 miles in 24 hours, by
which our account was brought back to its original agreement with
the time-keeper and lunar observations. The greatest velocity of
the westerly current, was between latitude 3° 00' north and
the line, and its direction appeared to have been nearly west,
for we never found our observations for the latitude materially
affected by it; the same was the case with the easterly current,
which may account for the ships from the northward, bound to the
coast of Brazil, who may have no other way of determining their