Early Australian Voyages | Page 6

of which no care was taken. In short, such was their
confusion that they made but three trips that day, carrying over to the
island 180 persons, twenty barrels of bread, and some small casks of
water. The master returned on board towards evening, and told the
captain that it was to no purpose to send more provisions on shore,
since the people only wasted those they had already. Upon this the
captain went in the shallop, to put things in better order, and was then
informed that there was no water to be found upon the island; he
endeavoured to return to the ship in order to bring off a supply, together
with the most valuable part of their cargo, but a storm suddenly arising,
he was forced to return.
The next day was spent in removing their water and most valuable
goods on shore; and afterwards the captain in the skiff, and the master
in the shallop, endeavoured to return to the vessel, but found the sea
run so high that it was impossible to get on board. In this extremity the
carpenter threw himself out of the ship, and swam to them, in order to
inform them to what hardships those left in the vessel were reduced,
and they sent him back with orders for them to make rafts, by tying the
planks together, and endeavour on these to reach the shallop and skiff;
but before this could be done, the weather became so rough that the
captain was obliged to return, leaving, with the utmost grief, his
lieutenant and seventy men on the very point of perishing on board the
vessel. Those who were got on the little island were not in a much
better condition, for, upon taking an account of their water, they found
they had not above 40 gallons for 40 people, and on the larger island,
where there were 120, their stock was still less. Those on the little
island began to murmur, and to complain of their officers, because they

did not go in search of water, in the islands that were within sight of
them, and they represented the necessity of this to Captain Pelsart, who
agreed to their request, but insisted before he went to communicate his
design to the rest of the people; they consented to this, but not till the
captain had declared that, without the consent of the company on the
large is land, he would, rather than leave them, go and perish on board
the ship. When they were got pretty near the shore, he who commanded
the boat told the captain that if he had anything to say, he must cry out
to the people, for that they would not suffer him to go out of the boat.
The captain immediately attempted to throw himself overboard in order
to swim to the island. Those who were in the boat prevented him; and
all that he could obtain from them was, to throw on shore his
table-book, in which line wrote a line or two to inform them that he
was gone in the skiff to look for water in the adjacent islands.
He accordingly coasted them all with the greatest care, and found in
most of them considerable quantities of water in the holes of the rocks,
but so mixed with the sea-water that it was unfit for use; and therefore
they were obliged to go farther. The first thing they did was to make a
deck to their boat, because they found it was impracticable to navigate
those seas in an open vessel. Some of the crew joined them by the time
the work was finished; and the captain having obtained a paper, signed
by all his men, importing that it was their desire that he should go in
search of water, he immediately put to sea, having first taken an
observation by which he found they were in the latitude of 28 degrees
13 minutes south. They had not been long at sea before they had sight
of the continent, which appeared to them to lie about sixteen miles
north by west from the place they had suffered shipwreck. They found
about twenty-five or thirty fathoms water; and as night drew on, they
kept out to sea; and after midnight stood in for the land, that they might
be near the coast in the morning. On the 9th of June they found
themselves as they reckoned, about three miles from the shore; on
which they plied all that day, sailing sometimes north, sometimes west;
the country appearing low, naked, and the coast excessively rocky; so
that they thought it resembled the country near Dover. At last they saw
a little creek, into which they were willing to put, because it appeared
to have