1802.
November.
Saturday 13.
chart on each side of Staten River; but where that river can be found I know not.
The nearest approach made to the land in the afternoon, was five or six miles, with 3 fathoms water; at dusk we anchored in 6 fathoms, mud, at six or seven miles from the shore, having been forced off a little by the sea breeze veering southward. A tide here ran gently to the S.S.W., till near ten o'clock, and then set northward till daylight;Sunday 14. at which time the water had fallen nine feet by the lead line. We got under way with a land wind from the north-east, which afterwards veered to north-west, and steered a course nearly due south; which, as the coast then trended south-westward, brought us in with it. At noon, the latitude was 17° 3′ 15″, longitude 141° 0′; a projecting part bore N. 59° E. three or four miles, and the depth was 3½ fathoms. There appeared to be a small opening on the south side of this little projection, which corresponds in latitude to Van Diemen's River in the old chart; but across the entrance was an extensive flat, nearly dry, and would probably prevent even boats from getting in. If this place had any title to be called a river in 1644, the coast must have undergone a great alteration since that time.
In the afternoon our course along shore was more westward; and this, with the increasing shallowness of the water, made me apprehend that the Gulph would be found to terminate nearly as represented in the old charts, and disappoint the hopes formed of a strait or passage leading out at some other part of Terra Australis. At four o'clock, after running more than an hour in 3½ fathoms, or less than 3 at low water, our distance from the shore was five miles; and a small opening then bore S. 14° E., which seems to be the Caron River, marked at the south-east extremity of the Gulph in the Dutch chart; but whatever it might have been in Tasman's time, no navigator would now think of attempting to enter it with a ship: the latitude is 17° 26′, and longitude 140° 52′ east. From four till seven our course was W. by S., close to the wind, the depth being mostly