Derde reys, gedaan voor de Engelsche Maatschappy na Oost-Indien, met drie scheepen, de Draak, Hector, en ...

And resolved to sail to Sierra Leone.

what course to take; among other places, Sierra Leone was mentioned. I had read about that place before; I therefore asked for the Book of Voyages by Mr. Hakluyt and pointed out the location to my Captain, who, like me, was well inclined toward it. I then had the ship's council assemble, all the more because we had many sick men, no hope of reaching Noronha, and we were so near a place with good water, of which we were in great need. I proposed to them after dinner what was best for us to do. In general, it was judged by everyone for many reasons not to be advisable to sail further South. When asked what place they thought best to reach for water, Churchward, Savadge, and Taverner were of the opinion that Mayo would be the most suitable place; but how far beyond reason this was, I leave for others to judge. Earning, Pockham, Mollineux, and my Captain, like myself, judged Sierra Leone to be best for us. Upon this, it was decided to go and seek the last-mentioned place, which I announced to our men to their great joy.

How they take their route there.

On the 4th of August, in the morning, we saw much foam, a sign of land, and in the evening, we had from 28 to 16 fathoms unit of depth, approx. 6 feet of water and soft ground, but we did not yet see land. I therefore deployed my sloop, which I let sail around us to determine how the current was. They noted by the log-line a device for measuring speed that the current, in one watch-time, set two miles South-East by East; however, the sloop drifted another way due to the wind. We steered East and South-East the entire morning and had from 30 to 20 and 10 fathoms of water (though we did not sight land). Where it was deepest, the ground was soft, and where it was shallower, it was coarse yellow sandy ground. Around nine o'clock, we sighted land, which appeared in the North-East, eight miles from us, round and quite high.

At noon, we were at the latitude of 7 degrees 56 minutes, and had that whole day