and next day brought presents of food.  On the 20th the foremast of the Resolution was stepped and rigging commenced, and in the middle of the day a large body of natives marched in procession to the watering place, beating drums, yelling, carrying white flags, sugar-cane, etc., with Eapoo at their head bearing a parcel wrapped in cloth containing some of Cook’s bones.  He went off to the Resolution with Clerke, and soon after a boat was sent ashore for a present of food from Terreeoboo.  The next day, with the same ceremonial, Eapoo again appeared with all the remaining bones it was possible to recover, and was this time accompanied by Karowa, Terreeoboo’s youngest son.

“The 21st February.  At sunset the Resolution fired ten minute guns, with the colours half staff up, when the remains of our late Commander were committed to the deep.”

Lieutenant Williamson was severely blamed by his brother officers for not going to the assistance of the pinnace at the time of the attack on his Captain, and it is said that had it not been for Clerke’s ill health he would have been tried by court-martial.  He was afterwards, when in command of the Agincourt, tried for “disaffection, cowardice, disobedience to signals, and not having done his duty in rendering all assistance possible.”  He was found guilty on the last two counts only, and was “placed at the bottom of the list of Post-Captains, and rendered incapable of ever serving on board of any of His Majesty’s ships.”

Cook’s remains.

Ellis, in his Tour through Hawaii, says that King’s account of Cook’s death, from which the above has been largely drawn, agrees in a remarkable manner with that given by the natives.  They in no way blamed their visitors for what occurred, and even after his death appear to have looked upon Cook as a man of a superior race to themselves.  His breastbone and ribs were long preserved as relics, and in 1832 Ellis states there were many living who remembered the occasion, and all agreed that Cook’s conduct to their countrymen was humane.

Captain Clerke says: 

“Upon examining the remains of my late honoured and much lamented friend, I found all his bones, excepting those of the back, jaw, and feet—­the two latter articles Earpo brought me in the morning—­the former, he declared, had been reduced to ashes with the trunk of the body.  As Carnacare (Kerriakair) had told us, the flesh was taken from all the bones, excepting those of the hands, the skin of which they had cut through in many places, and salted, with the intention, no doubt, of preserving them; Earpo likewise brought with him the two barrels of Captain Cook’s gun—­the one beat flat with the intention of making a cutting instrument of it; the other a good deal bent and bruised, together with a present of thirteen hogs from Terreaboo.”

The hands, as has been mentioned before, were identified by the scar left by the explosion of his powder flask in Newfoundland, which almost severed the thumb from the fingers.