Our change of situation was now visible in every countenance, for it was most sensibly felt in every breast:  We had been little less than three months entangled among shoals and rocks, that every moment threatened us with destruction; frequently passing our nights at anchor within hearing of the surge that broke over them; sometimes driving towards them even while our anchors were out, and knowing that if by any accident, to which an almost continual tempest exposed us, they should not hold, we must in a few minutes inevitably perish.  But now, after having sailed no less than three hundred and sixty leagues, without once having a man out of the chains heaving the lead, even for a minute, which perhaps never happened to any other vessel, we found ourselves in an open sea, with deep water, and enjoyed a flow of spirits, which was equally owing to our late dangers and our present security:  Yet the very waves, which by their swell convinced us that we had no rocks or shoals to fear, convinced us also that we could not safely put the same confidence in our vessel as before she had struck; for the blows she received from them so widened her leaks, that she admitted no less than nine inches water an hour, which, considering the state of our pumps, and the navigation that was still before us, would have been a subject of more serious consideration to people whose danger had not so lately been so much more imminent.

The passage or channel, through which we passed into the open sea beyond the reef, lies in latitude 14 deg. 32’ S. and may always be known by the three high islands within it, which I have called the Islands of Direction, because by these a stranger may find a safe passage through the reef quite to the main.  The channel lies from Lizard Island N.E. 1/2 N. distant three leagues, and is about one-third of a mile broad, and not more in length.  Lizard Island, which is, as I have before observed, the largest and the northermost of the three, affords safe anchorage under the north-west side, fresh water, and wood for fuel.  The low islands and shoals also which lie between it and the main abound with turtle and fish, which may probably be caught in all seasons of the year, except when the weather is very tempestuous; so that, all things considered, there is not perhaps a better place for ships to refresh at upon the whole coast than this island.  And before I dismiss it, I must observe, that we found upon it, as well as upon the beach in and about Endeavour River, bamboos, cocoa-nuts, pumice-stone, and the seeds of plants which are not the produce of this country, and which it is reasonable to suppose are brought from the eastward by the trade-winds.  The islands which were discovered by Quiros, and called Australia del Espiritu Santa, lie in this parallel, but how far to the eastward cannot now be ascertained:  In most charts they are placed in the same longitude with this country, which, as appears by the account of his voyage that has been published, he never saw; for that places his discoveries no less than two-and-twenty degrees to the eastward of it.[85]