Note 128 — Chapter XVIII
Reading edition
The Trial Rocks are thus mentioned in the “Lives and Voyages of Drake, Cavendish, and Dampier,” published in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library, page 448.
“Dampier intended once more to attempt New Holland in about 20°. Here he found soundings at forty fathoms, but did not see the land; and steered westward, to search for the Trial Rocks, (so named from an English ship called the Trial having been wrecked upon them many years before,) which were supposed to lie in this parallel, and about eighty leagues westward of the coast. But Captain Dampier was sick, and unable to maintain perpetual watch himself, and the officers inefficient and careless, so that this important point was not ascertained.”