The weather having now the same threatening appearance as on the 29th of October, which was followed by so sudden and severe a gale, and the wind continuing at S.S.E., it was thought prudent to leave the shore, and stand off to the eastward, to prevent our being entangled with the land.  Nor were we wrong in our prognostications; for it soon afterward began, and continued till next day, to blow a heavy gale, accompanied with hazy and rainy weather.  In the morning of the 3d, we found ourselves, by our reckoning, upward of fifty leagues from the land; which circumstance, together with the very extraordinary effect of currents we had before experienced, the late season of the year, the unsettled state of the weather, and the little likelihood of any change for the better, made Captain Gore resolve to leave Japan altogether, and prosecute our voyage to China; hoping, that as the track he meant to pursue had never yet been explored, he should be able to make amends, by some new discovery, for the disappointments we had met with on this coast.

If the reader should be of opinion that we quitted this object too hastily, in addition to the facts already stated it ought to be remarked, that Kaempfer describes the coast of Japan as the most dangerous in the whole world;[103] that it would have been equally dangerous, in case of distress, to run into any of their harbours, where we know, from the best authorities, that the aversion of the inhabitants to any intercourse with strangers, has led them to commit the most atrocious barbarities; that our ships were in a leaky condition, that our sails were worn out, and unable to withstand, a gale of wind, and that the rigging was so rotten as to require constant and perpetual repairs.

As the strong currents, which set along the eastern coast of Japan, may be of dangerous consequence to the navigator, who is not aware of their extraordinary rapidity, I shall take leave of this island, with a summary account of their force and direction, as observed by us from the 1st to the 8th of November.  On the 1st, at which time we were about eighteen leagues to the eastward of White Point, the current set N.E. and by N., at the rate of three miles an hour; on the 2d, as we approached the shore, we found it continuing in the same direction, but increased its rapidity to five miles an hour; as we left the shore it again became more moderate, and inclined to the eastward; on the 3d, at the distance of sixty leagues, it set to the E.N.E., three miles an hour; on the 4th and 5th, it turned to the southward, and at one hundred and twenty leagues from the land, its direction was S.E., and its rate not more than a mile and a half an hour; on the 6th and 7th, it again shifted round to the N.E., its force gradually diminishing till the 8th, when we could no longer perceive any at all.

During the 4th and 5th, we continued our course to the S.E., having very unsettled weather, attended with much lightning and rain.  On both days we passed great quantities of pumice-stone, several pieces of which we took up, and found to weigh from one ounce to three pounds.  We conjectured that these stones had been thrown into the sea by eruptions of various dates, as many of them were covered with barnacles, and others quite bare.  At the same time, we saw two wild ducks, and several small land-birds, and had many porpoises playing round us.