James Cook - A Journal of the proceedings of His Majesty's Bark Endeavour on a voyage round the world, by Lieutenant James Cook, Commander, commencing the 25th of May 1768 - 23 Oct. 1770 - Page 311

New Wales or East Coast of New Holland
[margin] Weymouth [/margin]
In the pm as the wind would not permit us to sail out by the same channel as we came in neither did I care to move until the pinnance was in better repair I went to the Master with all the other boats to the reef to get such refreshments as he could find & in the mean time the carpenters were repairing the pinnance Variat.n by the ampl.de & azm.th in the morning 4°.'9' Easterly. at noon Lat.de observed 12.'38 S.o. Long.de in 216°:45' W. it being now about low water, I & some other of the officers went to the Masthead to see what we could discover, just part of the reef without us was dry & we could see an opining in it about 2 leag.s farther to the SE then the one we came in by, we likewise saw 2 large spots of sand to the Southward within the reef, but could see nothing to the Northward between it & the Main. on the mainland within us was a pretty high promontary which I called Cape Weymouth (Lat.de 12°.'42' S.o Longitude 217°.'15') & on the NW side of this cape is a bay which I called Weymouth Bay.
Saturday 18th Gentle breezes at E. & ESE. at 4pm the boats returned fro the reef with about 240 tn of shellfish being the meat of large cockles exclusive of the shells. some of the cockles are as large as 2 men can move & contain several pounds of meat very good. at 6 in the morning we got under sail & stood away to the NW. as we could not expect a wind to get out to sea by the same channel as we came in without waiting perhaps a long time for it, nor was it advisable at this time to go without the shoals least we should by them be carried so far off the coast as not to be able to determine wether or no New Guinea joins to or makes a part of this land this doubtful point I had from my first coming upon this coast determined if possible to clear up. I now came to a fixed solution to keep the mainland onboard & on this all the officers concurred, for standing to the NW we met with very irregular soundings from 10 to 27 fa.m. varying 5 or 6 fa.m. almost every cast of the lead, however we keept on having a boat ahead sounding A little before noon we passed a low small sandy isle which we left on our starb.d  side at the distance of 2 miles. at the same time we saw others being part of large shoals above water, away to the NE & between us & the Mainland. at Noon we were by observ.on in the Lat.de of 12°.'28'S & 4 or 5 Leag.s from the main which extended from SbW. to N 71°W. & some small islands extending from N40°W to N54°W. the main or outer reef seen from the masthead away to the NE.
Sunday 19th. Gentle breezes at SEbE & clear weather at 2pm as we were steering NWbN. saw a large shoal right ahead extending 3 or 4 points on each bow upon which we hauld up NNE & NEbN in order to get round the N.o point of it, which we reached by 4 oClock & then edged away to the westward & ran between the N.o end of this shoal & another which lays 2 miles to the Northward of it. having a boat all this time ahead sounding our depth of water was very irregular from 22 to 8 fa.m  at 1/2 past 6 we anchor'd in 13 fa.m. the northernmost of the small islands on eastern at