ving fortified Juan Fernandes, they might
be found convenient for Great Britain, if she should hereafter be
engaged in a Spanish war. These islands are laid down in Green's charts,
which were published in the year 1753, from latitude 26 deg. 20' to 27 deg. S.,
and from 1 deg.1/4 to 2 deg.1/2 W. of Masafuero; I therefore hauled up with a
design to keep in that latitude, but soon afterwards, consulting
Robertson's Elements of Navigation, I found the island of Saint Ambrose
there laid down in latitude 25 deg. 50' S., and 82 deg. 20' longitude west of
London, and supposing that islands of so small an extent might be laid
down with more exactness in this work than in the chart, I bore away
more northward for that latitude; the event, however, proved that I
should not have trusted him so far: I missed the islands, and as I saw
great numbers of birds and fish, which are certain indications of land
not far off, there is the greatest reason to conclude that I went to the
northward of them. I am sorry to say that upon a farther examination of
Robertson's tables of latitudes and longitudes, I found them erroneous
in many particulars: This censure, however, if I had not thought it
necessary to prevent future mischief, should have been suppressed.

Upon examining the account that is given by Wafer, who was surgeon on
board Captain Davis's ship, I think it is probable that these two
islands are the land that Davis fell in with in his way to the southward
from the Gallapago islands, and that the land laid down in all the sea
charts under the name of Davis's Land, has no existence, notwithstanding
what is said in the account of Roggewein's voyage, which was made in
1722, of land that they called Eastern Island, which some have imagined
to be a confirmation of Davis's discovery, and the same land to which
his name has been given.

It is manifest from Wafer's narrative, that little credit is due to the
account kept on board Davis's ship, except with respect to the latitude,
for he acknowledges that they had like to have perished by their making
an allowance for the variation of the needle westward, instead of
eastward: He tells us also that they steered S. by E. 1/2 E. from the
Gallapagos, till they made land in latitude 27 deg. 20' S., but it is
evident that such a course would carry them not to the westward but to
the eastward of the Gallapagos, and set them at about the distance of
two hundred leagues from Capiapo, and not five hundre