very little success we did not delay, and by sunset reached
the vessel.

October 7.

On the 7th we left the anchorage under Vine Head, and by the aid of a
breeze from the North-West worked out of the western entrance of the bay,
which appeared to be quite free from danger of every sort.

At sunset we anchored in the outer part of the entrance in nine fathoms
and a half, muddy bottom. On the west side of the peninsula we passed
three bays, from one to two miles deep and one mile broad; in each of
these inlets there appeared to be good anchorage.

The bay was named Vansittart after the late Chancellor of the Exchequer.

October 8.

At daylight (8th) we weighed and stood out to the North-West between
Troughton Island and Cape Bougainville. Round the latter projection the
land trends so deeply in to the southward that it was lost to view; but
two flat-topped islands were seen in the South-South-West, which
afterwards proved to be some of Captain Baudin's Institute Isles; we were
now obliged to steer down the western side of the cape, for our further
progress to the westward was stopped by a considerable reef extending
north and south parallel with the land of Cape Bougainville. During the
afternoon we had the wind and tide against us so that we made no
progress. Some bights in the coast were approached with the intention of
anchoring in them but the water was so deep and the ground so
unfavourable for it that the stream anchor was eventually dropped in the
offing in twenty-two fathoms: where during the night the tide set with
unusual velocity and ran at the rate of one knot and three-quarters per
hour.

October 9.

In the morning a view from the masthead enabled me to see a confused mass
of rocks and islets in the South-West. At eight o'clock the flood tide
commenced and the anchor being weighed, we steered towards the bottom of
the gulf; on our way to which the positions of several small rocks and
islets, which form a part of this archipelago, were fixed. At noon our
latitude was 14 degrees 7 minutes 15 seconds, when the hill, which we
ascended over Encounter Cove in Vansittart Bay, was seen bearing South 88
1/2 degrees East. The land to the southward was still far distant but
with a fresh sea breeze we made rapid progress towards it and by four
o'clock entered an extensive port at the bottom of the gulf and anchored
in a bay on its western shore, land-locked, in four fathoms and
three-quarters, mud. In finding t