Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/451

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Oct.]
OF LA PEROUSE.
423

Days—Departure from Legrand Bay, and Continuation of our Run along the Coast—Want of Water obliges us to leave it—Arrival at Cape Diemen—Cast Anchor in the Bay of Rocks.

October 15th.

We only waited for a fair wind, to take our departure. At half an hour past seven A.M. having a small breeze from the south-east we immediately weighed anchor, and about eleven o'clock, we had reached the entrance of the road, the western point of which bore W. 6° 15′ N. and the eastern E. 6° 15′ S. our distance from this last being about 1,200 toises.

Our meridian observations gave the latitude of the most westerly part of Amboyna, 3° 46′ 54″ south, and its longitude 125° 53′ 28″ east.

The breeze continuing all the day at south-east, we kept close to the wind, on the larboard-tack.

One of the boys of the large Dutch East-Indiaman, which had just sailed for Batavia, had hid himself on board the Recherche, and made his appearance at the very instant when the Captain of the Esperance, acquainted the General, that he had discovered, on board his ship, six fugitives from Amboyna, namely, three of the Company's soldiers, a sailor and two negro slaves. Those unhappy men had made their escape from a country,

where