d leagues, as he
has alleged; for the variation here is not more than half a point to the
eastward now, and it must have been still less then, it having been
increasing to the eastward on all this coast. The course that Davis
steered therefore, if the distance between the islands of St Ambrose and
St Felix, and the Gallapagos, as laid down in all our sea charts, is
right, must have brought him within sight of St Ambrose and St Felix,
when he had run the distance he mentions. The truth is, that if there
had been any such place as Davis's Land in the situation which has been
allotted to it in our sea charts, I must have sailed over it, or at
least have seen it, as will appear in the course of this narrative.

I kept between the latitude 25 deg. 50' and 25 deg. 30', in search of the
islands I intended to examine, till I got five degrees to the westward
of our departure, and then seeing no land, and the birds having left us,
I hauled more to the southward, and got into latitude 27 deg. 20' S. where I
continued till we got between seventeen and eighteen degrees to the
westward of our departure. In this parallel we had light airs and foul
winds, with a strong northerly current, which made me conjecture that we
were near this Davis's Land, for which we looked out with great
diligence, but a fair wind springing up again, we steered west by south,
which gradually brought us into the latitude of 28 deg. 1/2 S., so that it
is evident I must have sailed over this land, or at least have seen it
if there had been any such place. I afterwards kept in the latitude of
28 deg. for forty degrees to the westward of my departure, or, according to
my account, 121 degrees west of London, this being the highest south
latitude the winds and weather would permit me to keep, so that I must
have gone to the southward of the situation assigned to the supposed
continent called Davis's Land in all our charts.[55]

[Footnote 55: This was really the case, as will be seen in the account
of one of Cook's Voyages: For there seems reason to believe, that the
island called Easter Island, and sometimes Teapy, is the land which
Captain Davis saw in 1686, and Roggewein visited in 1722. See what is
said on this subject in vol. xi, p. 90, of this collection.--E.]

We continued our search till Wednesday the 17th of June, when, in
latitude 28 deg. S., longitude 112 deg. W., we saw many sea-birds, which flew in
flocks, and some rock-weed, which made me conjecture