We were no sooner clear of the harbour, than the wind veered more to the southward, and began to blow strong, with thick, hazy, and dirty weather; and, what gave me privately a good deal of concern, the carpenter reported, that the ship, which had hitherto been very tight, now made water. This piece of information, with such a voyage as the Sirius was now entered upon, was no doubt very unwelcome; and more particularly so, when it was considered, that the ship's company, from having been long upon salt diet, without the advantage of any sort of vegetables, were not so healthy and strong as a leaky ship might require.
I had often observed, that when this voyage, upon which we were now entered, was the subject of conversation, in company with the governor, he always spoke in favour of the passage round Van Diemen's land, and to the westward; but when I signified a wish that he would direct by what route I should endeavour to perform the voyage, he declined that; and said that I should be governed by circumstances, and that he should leave it to my discretion and judgment; at the same time expressing his opinion strongly in favour of the western route; which I confess I was a little surprised at, as it had never yet been attempted, not even by ships employed in that kind of service which leaves it in their power to make experiments.
I do not say that the passage from Van Diemen's land to the Cape of Good Hope, by the westward, is impracticable, as that remains yet to be tried; but from my own experience of the prevalence of strong westerly winds across that vast ocean, I am inclined to think it must be a long and tedious voyage; and at the same time so very uncertain, that the time for which the Sirius was victualled, (for four months, and of some articles not more than two weeks, for the number of men on board; having left a considerable quantity of our provision for the use of the settlement,) and the nature of the service she was going upon, which was no doubt of considerable consequence to the colony, was not an opportunity for trying such an experiment; as the consequence of a disappointment would have been, that I must have returned again to Port Jackson for a fresh supply of provisions, and the season for another passage would have been too far advanced. I therefore determined, judging from the experience of those who had before made the eastern passage, to pass to the southward of New Zealand and round Cape Horn.
We stood off to the eastward, determined as early as possible to get an offing of fifty or sixty leagues; the wind continued to the southward, with the same hazy and squally weather, until the 5th, when it shifted to south-south-east; by this time we were about 70 leagues from the coast, which enabled us to tack and stand to the south-west: with this change of wind from the south-west to the south-east quarter, the same squally and unsettled weather continued. The ship upon the larboard tack made much more water than on the starboard, so much as to render it necessary to pump her every two hours, to prevent too long a spell; she made in general from ten to twelve inches in two hours.
There was reason to conjecture, from this difference on the opposite tacks, that the leak was somewhere about the starboard bow, and near the surface of the water, and if it proved so, I had a hope that we might, the first moderate weather, with smooth water, be able to come at and stop it. I was the more sanguine in this expectation, as the carpenter, in a few days after, discovered it to be under the after part of the fore-channel, a little below the surface of the water; and seemed to think it proceeded from one of the butt-bolts being corroded by the copper, which I now understood had never been taken off since the ship's being first sheathed, which was now more than eight years.
On the 6th, the weather cleared up, and both Mr. Bradley and myself had a few distances of the sun and moon, by which our longitude was 157° 10' east, by the time-keeper 156° 55' east, and by account 156° 17' east; the latitude 34° 49' south; variation per Azimuth 11° 40' east. At noon, the wind got round to east and east by north, with which I steered south-south-east; still favouring our endeavours to get to the southward; it next came to north-east and north, and in latitude 40° 33' south, it came to north-west, but the weather still continued squally and unsettled. As the weather began now to be rather cold, and as in the track I meant to prosecute my voyage by I might expect to have it considerably colder, and consequently the ship's company would require a shift of cloathing, slops were served to all who stood in need of them.
On the 9th, we were near as far to the southward as Van Diemen's Land, or South Cape of New Holland; and the wind being apparently settled in the south-west quarter, I steered a course for the south cape of New Zealand. From Port Jackson to Van Diemen's Land we had run parallel to the coast, at the distance of 60 leagues from it, and have not seen any thing; so that we may venture to say, that there are no islands lie off that part of the coast, at the above distance from it. On the afternoon of this day (9th) we had several good setts of distances of the sun and moon, by which our longitude was 157° 26' east, by the time-keeper 157° 19' east, and by account 157° 48' east; the latitude 43° 30' south; the thermometer was now 57°.
On the 12th, we passed the south cape of New Zealand, but the weather being very hazy and squally, we did not attempt to make it, but kept a degree and a half to the southward of it; here we met with vast numbers of birds of various kinds, mostly aquatic, such as albatrosses, pentada birds, divers, peterels, and a variety of gulls; some of a kind I had not before seen during the voyage, very large, of a dark brown or mouse colour; and another sort not quite so large, with a white body, dark wings, and the head of a light blue or lead colour: much sea-weed was also seen here in very large patches.
We now had the wind fresh from the north-west quarter, with frequent squalls, attended with rain, and the weather cold. We found the variation of the compass 40 leagues south-south-east from the south cape of New Zealand, to be 16° 54' east. Mr. Worgan, the surgeon, having recommended the essence of malt to be served at this time to the ship's company, a certain quantity of wort was made every morning, and a pint served to each man.
On the 15th, by an observation of the moon's distance from the star aquila, our longitude was 171° 16' east, the latitude was 50° 45' south, and the variation of the compass 16° 20' east; longitude by the time-keeper 171° 32' east, and by account 172° 10' east. From this time to the 22d, we had light and variable winds, sometimes from the south and south-east, and sometimes from the northward, with moist and hazy weather.