was dashed to pieces against the dangerous islands which close its eastern opening.  The relation of our voyage, and the dangers incurred, will still farther demonstrate the perils of this navigation; and the loss of the two vessels of Captain Flinders, sent by the English government to compete with us, will but too clearly furnish a new and lamentable evidence.  The circumstance of Cook’s escape, we see, is allowed its due impression on the mind of this gentleman.  It is very probable that had Dr Hawkesworth himself ever been in such critical perils, and experienced any thing like such a remarkable deliverance, the placidity of his principles would have given way to more lively emotions.  The deductions of reason, it is certain, are not unusually at variance with the instantaneous, but perhaps more real and genuine productions of our feelings, which it is the cant of modern days to denominate the lower parts of our constitution.—­E.]

The north-east entrance of this passage or streight lies in the latitude of 10 deg. 39’ S., and in the longitude of 218 deg. 36’ W. It is formed by the main, or the northern extremity of New Holland, on the S.E., and by a congeries of islands, which I called the Prince of Wales’s Islands, to the N.W., and it is probable that these islands extend quite to New Guinea.  They differ very much both in height and circuit, and many of them seemed to be well clothed with herbage and wood:  Upon most, if not all of them, we saw smoke, and therefore there can be no doubt of their being inhabited:  It is also probable, that among them there are at least as good passages as that we came through, perhaps better, though better would not need to be desired, if the access to it from the eastward were less dangerous:  That a less dangerous access may be discovered, I think there is little reason to doubt, and to find it, little more seems to be necessary than to determine how far the principal, or outer reef, which bounds the shoals to the eastward, extends towards the north, which I would not have left to future navigators if I had been less harassed by danger and fatigue, and had had a ship in better condition for the purpose.

To this channel, or passage, I have given the name of the ship, and called it Endeavour Streights.  Its length from N.E. to S.W. is ten leagues, and it is about five leagues broad, except at the north-east entrance, where it is somewhat less than two miles, being contracted by the islands which lie there.  That which I called Possession Island is of a moderate height and circuit, and this we left between us and the main, passing between it and two small round islands which lie about two miles to the N.W. of it.  The two small islands, which I called Wallis’s Islands, lie in the middle of the south-west entrance, and these we left to the southward.  Our depth of water in the streight was from four to nine fathom, with every where good anchorage, except upon the bank, which lies two leagues to the northward of Wallis’s