In the night of Monday the 24th, we fell in with nine islands.  They stretch nearly N.W. by W. and S.E. by E. about fifteen leagues, and lie in latitude 4 deg. 36’ S. longitude 154 deg. 17’ E. according to the ship’s account.  I imagine these to be the islands which are called Ohang Java, and were discovered by Tasman; for the situation answers very nearly to their place in the French chart, which in the year 1756 was corrected for the king’s ships.  The other islands, Carteret’s, Gower’s, and Simpson’s, I believe had never been seen by an European navigator before.  There is certainly much land in this part of the ocean not yet known.

One of these islands is of considerable extent, the other eight are scarcely better than large rocks; but though they are low and flat, they are well covered with wood, and abound with inhabitants.  The people are black, and woolly-headed, like the negroes of Africa:  Their weapons are bows and arrows; and they have large canoes which they navigate with a sail, one of which came near us, but would not venture on board.

We went to the northward of these islands, and steered W. by S. with a strong south-westerly current.  At eleven o’clock at night, we fell in with another island of a considerable extent, flat, green, and of a pleasant appearance.  We saw none of its inhabitants; but it appeared by the many fires which we saw in the night to be well peopled.  It lies in latitude 4 deg. 50’ S. and bears west fifteen leagues from the northermost of the Nine Islands, and we called it Sir Charles Hardy’s Island.

At day-break the next morning, we discovered another large high island, which, rising in three considerable hills, had, at a distance, the appearance of three islands.  We gave it the name of Winchelsea’s Island; it is distant from Sir Charles Hardy’s island about ten leagues, in the direction of S. by E. We had here the wind squally, with unsettled weather, and a very strong westerly current.

About ten o’clock in the morning of the 26th, we saw another large island to the northward, which I supposed to be the same that was discovered by Schouten, and called the island of Saint John.  Soon after we saw high land to the westward, which proved to be Nova Britannia; and as we approached it we found a very strong S.S. westerly current, setting at the rate of no less than thirty-two miles a-day.  The next day, having only light winds, a north-westerly current set us into a deep bay or gulph, which proved to be that which Dampier has distinguished by the name of Saint George’s Bay.

On the 28th, we anchored in a bay near a little island at the distance of about three leagues to the N.W. of Cape Saint George, which was called Wallis’s Island.  I found the latitude of this Cape to be about 5 deg.  S. and its longitude by account 152 deg. 19’ E. which is about two thousand five hundred leagues due west from the continent of America, and about one degree and a half more to the