90
VOYAGE TO THE SOUTH SEAS.
as many man-of-war hawks as could find a reſting place, and a few ſeals.
Having found the Iſles Socoro, Santo Berto, and Rocks Partida, by my manuſcript chart, I had every reaſonable expectation of ſeeing alſo the Iſle St. Thomas, which was diſcovered by a Spaniard, Diego Hurtado, in the year 1533, and by him placed in Latitude 21° 30′; and it was viſited afterwards by Gaeten Beſtrad, in the year 1542, who places it fifteen miles more to the Northward, than Hurtado; and by all the information I had collected, it lay a ſmall diſtance to the Weſtward and Northward of Socoro,
I ſhaped my courſe for the ſituation in which it was placed in my chart; but when I had run the diſtance, I did not perceive any thing like land, nor any ſigns of my being near it, except the birds and ſeals which we frequently ſaw. I did not, however, entertain the leaſt doubt of its exiſtence, but concluded that I had miſſed it by ſailing too much in a right line from Rocka Partida. The weather being too unfavorable for me to return to the coaſt of Mexico, I diſcontinued my ſearch, for the preſent, after the Iſle St. Thomas; and, from the quantity of whales frequenting the coaſt of California, as mentioned by Mr. Dalrymple, in his hiſtory of that country, as well as from the number ſeen by myſelf in my preceding voyage,