there, on account of Governor Lyttleton. It appeared that her officers and crew, being deceived in their reckoning, and imagining themselves to the eastward of Madeira, when they were in reality to the westward, lost so much time in correcting the consequences of this mistake, that they did not arrive till three days after the Deptford.
The want of the original Journal of William Harrison, is happily supplied, in a considerable degree, by an account of the voyage after leaving Madeira, which he sent to his father-in-law, about a week from his arrival at home. It is dated, London, April 10th, 1762. The details will not be thought tedious, by those who interest themselves in this first regular experiment to solve a problem which had so much excited the attention, and exercised the ingenuity of scientific men in the preceding centuries.—The beginning and the conclusion of this letter, being wholly of a family nature, are omitted: passing by this, he proceeds—I have but little time, and my voyage home has been such a one as tongue cannot utter, nor pen express; therefore it will be but a very imperfect idea that I shall be able to note down; but I thank the Almighty God, that he hath through his infinite goodness given me once more an opportunity to write to you from this place (which some time ago I never expected) and at the same time to crown me with greater success than could any ways be imagined, considering what we have undergone.
My Wife some time ago sent you a copy of a letter I wrote to her from Madeira, which gave you an account of my voyage to that place, and of the success of the Watch; so that I shall now only give you the particulars of the voyage from that Island to Jamaica, and from Jamaica to England again. We sailed from Madeira on the 18th of December, and saw no land till the 11th of January; when about half an hour after six in the morning we saw the Island of Deseada. In our voyage from Madeira to this place my reckoning by the Watch was kept a secret; for we found, was it known, that all the reckonings in the ship would be corrected by it, if I made it
