At ten o’clock, a projection which merited the name of Rocky Point bore S. 74 deg.  E., five miles; and here the direction of the coast was changed to east, for near seven miles, when it formed a bight by again trending south-eastward.  The shore round the bight is high, and at the back were several bare peaks which, from their whiteness, might have been thought to be covered with snow; but their greatest elevation of perhaps 1200 feet, combined with the height of the thermometer at 62 deg., did not admit the supposition.  These peaks are probably what Tasman named De Witt’s Isles, from his distance having been too far off to distinguish the connecting land, and I therefore called the highest of them, lying in 43 deg. 91/2’ south, Mount De Witt.

This morning, two sets of distances of the sun west of the moon were observed, and our situation at noon was as follows: 

Latitude, 43 deg. 7’ S.
Longitude from the lunar observations, 145 16 E.
Rocky Point, distant six or seven miles, N. 3 W.
Mount De Witt, S. 77 E.
Highest of two smaller hills, at the S. extreme, S. 59 E.

It afterwards appeared, that these smaller hills stood upon the extremity of a point; and in honour of the noble admiral with whose victory we had become acquainted, it was named POINT ST. VINCENT.

The western breeze died away in the evening, and the sloop was drifted in by the swell, and perhaps by a tide, towards an opening round Point St. Vincent.  This opening is indicated in the small chart which accompanies the voyage of M. Marion, but does not appear to have been seen by any other navigator.  Our bearings of the land, at sunset, deduced from the sun’s amplitude and sextant angles, were as follow: 

Mount De Witt, N. 18 deg.  E. Point St. Vincent, distant five miles, N. 57 E. Steep head on the east side of the opening, dist. 8 m.  N. 86 E. Pyramidal rock, lying off a cliffy head, S. 46 E.

At a further distance, and in the same bearing with the pyramidal rock, was a steep, jagged point, which proved to be the south-west cape of Van Diemen’s Land.  Our latitude at this time was 43 deg. 181/2’, the passage of the moon having allowed me to get an observation at four o’clock; from whence to eight, our position had changed only one-and-half mile to the east.

It remained nearly calm all night; and on the 13th, at daybreak, I was much surprised to find our situation near ten miles to the southward, instead of being in the same place.  This circumstance, and a breeze which arose at north, precluded me from examining the opening as I had intended; for a width of three or four miles at the entrance, and the form of the mountains behind, made it probable that a considerable river discharged itself there; and the offset during the night strengthened the supposition.  At six o’clock,