Weeks 12 & 13

12th Week

Saturday 26th 5th April – from Noon – fine weather. Moderate & foul wind.

Sunday 27 6th – pleasant cloudy but fair weather. Very light & foul wind.

Monday 28 7th – fine weather. Very light & fair wind all day with long heavy swell from Eastward. 5 or 6 vessels in sight. Towards evening wind inclinable to East.

[In the margin – ‘mistake Sunday should be Tuesday & & Monday Sunday.’] [3]

Tuesday 29th 8th – fine weather moderate & foul wind.

Wednesday 29th – cloudy weather. Fresh and foul wind.

Thursday 30th – fresh & foul wind – fine weather with passing showers.

Friday 1st May – fine weather with passing showers of rain.

Saturday 2nd May – up to noon – very fine weather. Very light & foul wind. Spoke a bark the John of Liverpool, bound to Quebec, went on board and set the right arm of one of the seamen, who had the ulna broken.

XII Hebdomade

Bad luck, back luck – just the same – our worst fears have been realised. Tis impossible to describe the impatience & anxiety of the ships Company, to reach their homes, and satisfy their friends of their safety. Throughout we have had foul winds, with the exception of a few hours of a faint attempt at something more favourable. We have made little or no real progress, we have been running along a straight line of a certain length and then turned back again. We might be taken for a man of war, under orders from the Admiralty to cruise in a particular latitude and longitude and forbidden to go to one side or another of our assigned station. In every circumstances our situation now is similar to what it was about the same time last year. The same weather – the same winds, and the same deceitfulness in those winds, now dying away to a calm – now wavering in direction, whenever we have a shower of rain but finally returning to the post which we hoped they had abandoned.

Tho’ certainly we have not given up all hopes, we have foregone by common consent all calculations as to the period of our arrival at Falmouth. Time meanwhile lags on most wearisomely. Four days may put us in, & yet we may be four weeks. One consolation we have had & it is no small one, & that is, that during the whole week we have enjoyed very fine weather, and our loneliness has been enlivened by numerous vessels, some brothers in misfortune with ourselves, & others scampering away with a favouring breeze.

13th Week

Saturday 2nd May – from noon – fine weather. Very light and foul wind.

Sunday 3rd – lovely weather and moderate foul wind, till 3 P.M. After that cloudy but fair weather – Strong and foul wind.

Monday 4th – fine weather. Fresh and nearly favourable wind. If we had been more to the Southward, it would have been quite fair.

Tuesday 5th – fine weather all day, cloudy & evening rainy with thick weather. Fresh and favourable breeze.

Wednesday 6th  – very fine weather. Moderate and favourable wind.

Thursday 7th – thick foggy weather. Moderate & favourable breeze. At 10 P.M. saw Scilly Light.

Friday 8th – thick & foggy weather. At 10 A.M. came to anchor in Falmouth Harbour.

– Finish –

And here James Williamson’s journals close in so far as his voyage accounts are concerned. Surplus to requirements, the Duke of York, was released from the Falmouth Packet Service, and presumably James left the service at the same time – his contract being with the commander of the ship, not the Service as such.