polite, there being scarcely a gentleman in the place,
either in a public or private station, from whom I did not receive some
civility; and I should very ill deserve the favours they bestowed, if I
did not particularly mention the first and second governor, and the
fiscal.

The recovery of my people made it necessary to continue here till the
6th of January, 1769; in the evening of this day I set sail, and before
it was dark cleared the land.

On the 20th, after a fine and pleasant passage, we made the island of St
Helena; and set sail again on the morning of the 24th. At midnight on
the 30th, we made the northeast part of the Island of Ascension, and
brought-to till daylight, when we ran in close to it. I sent a boat out
to discover the anchoring-place, which is called Cross-hill bay, while
we kept running along the north-east and north side of the island, till
we came to the north-west extremity of it, and in the afternoon anchored
in the bay we sought. The way to find this place at once, is to bring
the largest and most conspicuous hill upon the island to bear S.E.; when
the ship is in this position, the bay will be open, right in the middle,
between two other hills, the westermost of which is called Cross-hill,
and gives name to the bay. Upon this hill there is a flag-staff, which
if a ship brings to bear S.S.E. 1/2 E. or S.E. by E. and runs in,
keeping it so till she is in ten fathom water, she will be in the best
part of the bay. In our run along the north-east side of the island, I
observed several other small sandy bays, in some of which my boat found
good anchorage, and saw plenty of turtle, though they are not so
convenient as this, where we had plenty of turtle too. The beach here is
a fine white sand; the landing-place is at some rocks, which lie about
the middle of the bay, and may be known by a ladder of ropes which hangs
from the top to mount them by. In the evening I landed a few men to turn
the turtle that should come on shore during the night, and in the
morning I found that they had thus secured no less than eighteen, from
four hundred to six hundred weight each, and these were as many as we
could well stow on the deck. As there are no inhabitants upon this
island, it is a custom for the ships that touch at it to leave a letter
in a bottle, with their names and destination, the date, and a few other
particulars. We complied with this custom, and in the evening of Monday
the 1st of February, we weigh