the latter capacity, and as specially adapted to the kind of service in which she is alleged to have been engaged.  In running north from their extreme southerly limit, they must have passed the harbor of Georgetown in South Carolina, and Beaufort in North Carolina, in either of which the vessel could have entered; and in the latter, carrying seventeen feet at low water and obtaining perfect shelter from all winds. [Footnote:  Blunt’s American Coast Pilot, p. 359 (19th edition.)] But if they really had been unable to find either of them, it is impossible that they should not have discovered the Chesapeake, and entered it, under the alleged circumstances of their search.  That it may be seen what exactly is the statement of the letter in regard to this portion of the coast, it is here given in its own terms.  Having represented the explorers as having reached a point fifty leagues north of the landfall, which would have carried them north of Hatteras, but still on the coast of North Carolina, their movements over the next four hundred miles north are disposed 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