[Footnote 1: The centre of the island of Socoro, or Guayteca, on the western coast of Patagonia, is in lat. 43° 10' S. and long. 73° 40' W. from Greenwich.--E.]
Under these orders, the squadron sailed from St Catharines on Sunday the 18th of January, 1741. Next day we had very squally weather, attended with rain, lightning, and thunder; but it soon cleared up again, with light breezes, and continued so to the evening of the 21st, when it again blew fresh, and, increasing all night, it became a most violent storm by next morning, accompanied by so thick a fog that it was impossible for us to see to the distance of two ships lengths, and we consequently lost sight of all the squadron. On this a signal was made, by firing guns, to bring to with the larboard tacks, the wind being due east. We in the Centurion handed the top-sails, bunted the main-sail, and lay to under a reefed-mizen till noon, when the fog dispersed, and we soon discovered all the ships of the squadron, except the Pearl, which did not join till near a month afterwards. The Tryal was a great way to leeward, having lost her main-mast in the squall, and having been obliged to cut away the wreck, for fear of bilging. We therefore bore down with the squadron to her relief, and the Gloucester was ordered to take her in tow, as the weather did not entirely abate till next day, and even then a great swell continued from the eastward, in consequence of the preceding storm. After this accident we continued to the southward with little interruption, finding the same setting of the current we had observed before our arrival at St Catharines; that is, we generally found ourselves about twenty miles to the southward of our reckoning by the log every day. This, with some inequality, lasted till we had passed the latitude of the Rio Plata, and even then the same current, however difficult to be accounted for, undoubtedly continued; for we were not satisfied in attributing this appearance to any error in our reckoning, but tried it more than once, when a calm rendered it practicable.
Immediately on getting to the south of the latitude of the Rio Plata we had soundings, which continued all along the coast of Patagonia. These soundings, when well ascertained, being of great use in determining the position of a ship on this coast, and as we tried them more frequently, in greater depths, and with more attention, than I believe had ever been done before, I shall recite our observations on this subject as succinctly as I can. In lat. 36° 52' S. we had 60 fathoms on a bottom of fine black and grey sand: From thence to 39° 55' S. we varied our depths from 50 to 80 fathoms, but always with the same bottom: Between the last-mentioned latitude and 43° 16' S. we had only fine grey sand with the same variation of depths, except that we once or twice lessened the water to 40 fathoms. After this we continued in 40 fathoms for about half a degree, having a bottom of coarse sand and broken shells, at which time we were in sight of land at not above seven leagues distance. As we edged from the land we had a variety of soundings; first black sand, then muddy, and soon after rough ground with stones: But when we had increased our depth to forty-eight fathoms, we had a muddy bottom to the lat. of 46° 10' S. Hence drawing near the shore, we had at first thirty-six fathoms, and still kept shoaling till we came into twelve fathoms, having constantly small stones and pebbles at the bottom.