1803.
November.
Mynheer Geisler, the former governor of Coepang, died a month before our arrival, and Mr. Viertzen at this time commanded. He supplied us with almost every thing our situation required, and endeavoured to make my time pass as pleasantly as was in his power, furnishing me with a house near the fort to which I took the time keeper and instruments to ascertain a new rate and error; but my anxious desire to reach England, and the apprehension of being met by the north-west monsoon before passing Java, induced me to leave him as soon as we could be ready to sail, which was on the fourth day. The schooner had continued to be very leaky whenever the wind caused her to lie over on the side, and one of the pumps had nearly become useless; I should have risked staying two or three days longer, had Coepang furnished the means of fresh boring and fitting the pumps, or if pitch could have been procured to pay the seams in the upper works after they were caulked; but no assistance in this way could be obtained; we however got a leak stopped in the bow, and the vessel was afterwards tight so long as she remained at anchor.
Mr. Viertzen informed me that captain Baudin had arrived at Coepang near a month after I had left it in the Investigator, and had sailed early in June for the Gulph of Carpentaria; and I afterwards learned, that being delayed by calms and opposed by south-east winds, he had not reached Cape Arnhem when his people and himself began to be sickly; and fearing that the north-west monsoon might return before his examination was finished, and keep him in the Gulph beyond the extent of his provisions, he abandoned the voyage and steered for Mauritius in his way to Europe.
The situation of Fort Concordia is considered to be 10° 9¼′ south and 123° 35′ 46″ east, according to the observations made in the Investigator (see p. 258). I took altitudes with a sextant and artificial horizon on the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th, for the rate of the time keeper, which, with its error from mean Greenwich time at noon there on the last day of observation, was found to be as under;
Earnshaw's No. 520, slow 0ʰ 32′ 59″,91 and losing 36″,74 per day.
