were to be got near the shore, but I
sent the boats out a second time, with orders to land, if it were
possible, and procure some refreshments for the sick: they landed with
great difficulty, and brought off about two hundred cocoa-nuts, which,
to persons in our circumstances, were an inestimable treasure. The
people who were on shore, reported that there were no signs of its
having ever been inhabited, but that they found thousands of sea fowl
sitting upon their nests, which were built in high trees: These birds
were so tame that they suffered themselves to be knocked down without
leaving their nests: The ground was covered with land crabs, but our
people saw no other animal. At first I was inclined to believe that this
island was the same that in the Neptune Francois is called Maluita, and
laid down about a degree to the eastward of the great island of Saint
Elizabeth, which is the principal of the Solomon's Islands; but being
afterwards convinced to the contrary, I called it the _Duke of York's
Island_, in honour of his late royal highness, and I am of opinion that
we were the first human beings who ever saw it. There is indeed great
reason to believe that there is no good authority for laying down
Solomon's Islands in the situation that is assigned to them by the
French: The only person who has pretended to have seen them is Quiros,
and I doubt whether he left behind him any account of them by which they
might be found by future navigators.[39]

[Footnote 39: The opinion here stated is now pretty generally confided
in. Byron we see sailed over the northern, and Captain Carteret (as we
shall find) the southern limits of these supposed islands, but could
not find them. The name is now given to a cluster of islands tying
betwixt the north of Queen Charlotte's Archipelago, discovered by
Carteret, and the south-east coast of New Britain, &c.--E.]

We continued our course till the 29th, in the track of these islands,
and being then ten degrees to the westward of their situation in the
chart, without having seen any thing of them, I hauled to the northward,
in order to cross the equinoxial, and afterwards shape my course for the
Ladrone Islands, which, though a long run, I hoped to accomplish before
I should be distressed for water, notwithstanding it now began to fall
short. Our latitude, this day, was 8 deg.13'S., longitude 176 deg.20'E. and the
variation was 10 deg.10'E.

On Tuesday the 2d of July, we again saw many b