ha._

On the 21st in the evening, I took leave of the governor, and repaired
on board. Upon my leaving the shore, I was saluted with thirteen guns;
and upon my getting under sail, with the Dutton in company, I was
saluted with thirteen more; both of which I returned.

After leaving St Helena, the Dutton was ordered to steer N.W. by W. or
N.W. by compass, in order to avoid falling in with Ascension; at which
island, it was said, an illicit trade was carried on between the
officers of the India Company's ships, and some vessels from North
America, who, of late years, had frequented the island on pretence of
fishing whales or catching turtle, when their real design was to wait
the coming of the India ships. In order to prevent their homeward-bound
ships from falling in with these smugglers, and to put a stop to this
illicit trade, the Dutton was ordered to steer the course
above-mentioned, till to the northward of Ascension. I kept company with
this ship till the 24th, when, after putting a packet on board her for
the Admiralty, we parted: She continuing her course to the N.W., and I
steering for Ascension.

In the morning of the 28th I made the island; and the same evening
anchored in Cross Bay on the N.W. side, in ten fathoms water, the bottom
a fine sand, and half a mile from the shore. The Cross Hill, so called
on account of a cross, or flag-staff erected upon it, bore by compass S.
38 deg. E.; and the two extreme points of the bay extended from N.E. to S.W.
We remained here till the evening of the 31st, and notwithstanding we
had several parties out every night, we got but twenty-four turtle, it
being rather too late in the season; however, as they weighed between
four or five hundred pounds each, we thought ourselves not ill off. We
might have had a plentiful supply of fish in general, especially of that
sort called Old Wives, of which I have no where seen such abundance.
There were also cavalies, conger eels, and various other sorts; but the
catching of any of these was not attended to, the object being turtle.
There are abundance of goats, and aquatic birds, such as men-of-war and
tropic birds, boobies, &c.

The island of Ascension is about ten miles in length, in the direction
of N.W. and S.E., and about five or six in breadth. It shews a surface
composed of barren hills and vallies, on the most of which not a shrub
or plant is to be seen for several miles, and where we found nothing but
stones and sand, or