of in the following summary manner: "After having remained here,"
(that is, at or near Albemarle,) "three days riding at anchor on the
coast, as we could find no harbor, we determined to depart and coast
along the shore to the northeast, keeping sail on the vessel ONLY BY
DAY, and coming to anchor by night. After proceeding one hundred
leagues we found a VERY PLEASANT SITUATION AMONG SOME STEEP HILLS,
THROUGH WHICH A VERY LARGE RIVER, DEEP AT ITS MOUTH, FORCED ITS WAY
TO THE SEA." There can be no mistake in regard to the portion of the
coast here intended. Upon leaving this river they found that the
coast stretched, it is stated, as will presently appear, in an
EASTERLY direction. A stream coming from the hills, its situation at
the bend of the coast, its latitude as fixed by that of the port
which, after leaving it, they found in nearly the same parallel and
which is placed in 41 Degrees 40', all point distinctly to the
embouchure of the Hudson at the highlands of Navesink as the
termination of the hundred leagues. Within this distance the
Chesapeake empties into the sea.

The explorers were not only in search of a harbor for the purpose of
recruiting, but they were seeking, as the great end of the voyage, a
passage to Cathay, rendering, therefore, every opening in the coast
an object of peculiar interest and importance. They were sailing
with extreme caution and observation, in the day-time only, and
constantly in sight of land. The bay of the Chesapeake is the most
accessible and capacious on the coast of the United States. It
presents an opening into the sea of twelve miles from cape to cape,
having a broad and deep channel through which the largest ships of
modern times, twenty times or more the tonnage of the Dauphiny, may
enter and find inside of Cape Henry ample and safe anchorage.
[Footnote: Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 340.] That an actual