On the full and change days, it was high-water at 5^h 55^m apparent time; the tide rose and fell five feet five inches; at the neap tides, it rose four feet one inch.
From the observations taken by Mr Bayley and myself, on the 11th of this month, when the Cape of Good Hope bore due west, we found its latitude to be 34° 23' S., which is 4' to the northward of its position, as determined by the Abbé de la Caille.
Having completed our victualling, and furnished ourselves with the necessary supply of naval stores, we sailed out of the bay on the 9th of May, and on the 14th, we got into the south-east trade-wind, and steered to the westward of the islands of St Helena and Ascension. On the 31st, being in latitude 12° 48' S., longitude 15° 40' W., the magnetic needle was found to have no dip.
On the 12th of June, we passed the equator for the fourth time during this voyage, in longitude 26° 16' W. We now began to perceive the effects of a current setting N. by E., half a knot an hour. It continued in this direction till the middle of July, when it began to set a little to the southward of the west.
On the 12th of August, we made the western coast of Ireland, and after a fruitless attempt to get into Port Galway, from whence it was Captain Gore's intentions to have sent the journals and maps of our voyage to London, we were obliged, by strong southerly winds, to steer to the northward. Our next object was to put into Lough Swilly; but the wind continuing in the same quarter, we stood on to the northward of Lewis Island; and on the 22d of August, at eleven in the morning, both ships came to an anchor at Stromness. From hence, I was dispatched by Captain Gore, to acquaint the Board of Admiralty with our arrival; and on the 4th day of October the ships arrived safe at the Nore, after an absence of four years, two months, and twenty-two days.
On quitting the Discovery at Stromness, I had the satisfaction of leaving the whole crew in perfect health; and at the same time, the number of convalescents on board the Resolution did not exceed two or three, of whom only one was incapable of service. In the course of our voyage, the Resolution lost but five men by sickness, three of whom were in a precarious state of health at our departure from England; the Discovery did not lose a man. An unremitting attention to the regulations established by Captain Cook, with which the world is already acquainted, may be justly considered as the principal cause, under the blessing of Divine Providence, of this singular success. But the baneful effects of salt provisions might perhaps, in the end, have been felt, notwithstanding these salutary precautions, if we had not assisted them, by availing ourselves of every substitute, our situation at various times afforded. These frequently consisting of articles, which our people had not been used to consider as food for men, and being sometimes exceedingly nauseous, it required the joint aid of persuasion, authority, and example, to conquer their prejudices and disgusts.
The preventives we principally relied on were sour krout and portable soup. As to the antiscorbutic remedies, with which we were amply supplied, we had no opportunity of trying their effects, as there did not appear the slightest symptoms of the scurvy, in either ship, during the whole voyage. Our malt and hops had also been kept as a resource, in case of actual sickness; and on examination at the Cape of Good Hope, were found entirely spoiled. About the same time, were opened some casks of biscuit, flour, malt, pease, oatmeal, and groats, which, by way of experiment, had been put up in small casks, lined with tin-trail, and found all, except the pease, in a much better state, than could have been expected in the usual manner of package.
I cannot neglect this opportunity of recommending to the consideration of government, the necessity of allowing a sufficient quantity of Peruvian bark, to such of his majesty's ships as may be exposed to the influence of unwholesome climates. It happened very fortunately in the Discovery, that only one of the men that had fevers in the Straits of Sunda, stood in need of this medicine, as he alone consumed the whole quantity usually carried out by surgeons, in such vessels as ours. Had more been affected in the same manner, they would probably all have perished, from the want of the only remedy capable of affording them effectual relief.
Another circumstance attending this voyage, which, if we consider its duration, and the nature of the service in which we were engaged, will appear scarcely less singular than the extraordinary healthiness of the crews, was, that the two ships never lost sight of each other for a day together, except twice; which was owing, the first time, to an accident that happened to the Discovery off the coast of Owhyhee; and the second, to the fogs we met with at the entrance of Awatska Bay. A stronger proof cannot be given of the skill and vigilance of our subaltern officers, to whom this share of merit almost entirely belongs.