This excerpt was written Monday July 22, 1793, from the Pacific coast at the westward extent of the expedition.
“I observed an emersion of Jupiter’s third satellite, which gave 8.31.48. The mean of these observations is 8º 32′ 21″ which is equal to 128.2. West of Greenwich.
I had now determined my situation, which is the most fortunate circumstance of my long, painful, and perilous journey, as a few cloudy days would have prevented me from ascertaining the final longitude of it. (*Mr. Meares was undoubtedly wrong in the idea, so earnestly insisted on by him in his voyage, that there was a North-West passage to the Southward of sixty-nine degrees and a half of latitude, as I flatter myself has been proved by my former voyage [to the Arctic, undertaken in 1789]. Nor can I refrain from expressing my surprise at his assertion, that there was an inland sea or archipelago of great extent between the islands of Nootka and the main, about the latitude where I was at this time. Indeed I have been informed that Captain Grey, who commanded an American vessel, and on whose authority he ventured this opinion, denies that he had given Mr. Meares any such information. Besides, the contrary is indubitably proved by Captain Vancouver’s survey, from which no appeal can be made.)
At twelve it was high water, but the tide did not come within a foot and a half of the high water mark of last night. As soon as I had completed my observations, we left this place: it was then ten o’clock in the afternoon. We returned the same way that we came, and though the tide was running out very strong, by keeping close in with the rocks, we proceeded at a considerable rate, as my people were very anxious to get out of the reach of the inhabitants of this coast.”
