we were got so far to the westward that we were in view of a third island, which was that of Paxaros, though marked in the chart only as a rock.  This was small and very low land, and we had passed within less than a mile of it in the night without seeing it.  And now at noon, being within four miles of the island of Anatacan, the boat was sent away to examine the anchoring ground and the produce of the place, and we were not a little solicitous for her return, as we then conceived our fate to depend upon the report we should receive; for the other two islands were obviously enough incapable of furnishing us with any assistance, and we knew not then that there were any others which we could reach.  In the evening the boat came back, and the crew informed us that there was no place for a ship to anchor.

This account of the impossibility of anchoring at this island occasioned a general melancholy on board, for we considered it as little less than the prelude to our destruction; and now the only possible circumstance that could secure the few that remained alive from perishing was the accidental falling in with some other of the Ladrone Islands better prepared for our accommodation, and as our knowledge of these islands was extremely imperfect, we were to trust entirely to chance for our guidance; only, as they are all of them usually laid down near the same meridian, and we had conceived those we had already seen to be part of them, we concluded to stand to the southward as the most probable means of falling in with the next.  Thus, with the most gloomy persuasion of our approaching destruction, we stood from the island of Anatacan, having all of us the strongest apprehensions either of dying of the scurvy or perishing with the ship, which, for want of hands to work her pumps, might in a short time be expected to founder.

TINIAN.

It was the 26th of August, 1742, in the morning, when we lost sight of Anatacan.  The next morning we discovered three other islands to the eastward, which were from ten to fourteen leagues from us.  These were, as we afterwards learned, the islands of Saypan, Tinian and Aguigan.  We immediately steered towards Tinian, which was the middle-most of the three, but had so much of calms and light airs, that though we were helped forwards by the currents, yet next day at daybreak we were at least five leagues distant from it.  However, we kept on our course, and about ten in the morning we perceived a proa under sail to the southward, between Tinian and Aguigan.  As we imagined from hence that these islands were inhabited, and knew that the Spaniards had always a force at Guam, we took the necessary precautions for our own security and for preventing the enemy from taking advantage of our present wretched circumstances, of which they would be sufficiently informed by the manner of our working the ship.  We therefore mustered all our hands who were capable of standing to their arms and loaded our upper and quarter-deck