Mr. Raven found in health and safety all the people whom he had left there.  They had procured him only four thousand five hundred seal-skins, having been principally occupied in constructing a vessel to serve them in the event of any accident happening to the Britannia.  This they had nearly completed when Mr. Raven arrived.  She was calculated to measure about sixty-five tons, and was chiefly built of the spruce fir, which Mr. Raven stated to be the fittest wood he had observed there for ship-building, and which might be procured in any quantity or of any size.  The carpenter of the Britannia, an ingenious man, and master of his profession, compared it to English oak for durability and strength.

The natives had never molested the Britannia’s people:  indeed they seemed rather to abhor them; for if, by chance, in their excursions, which were but very few, they visited and left any thing in a hut, they were sure, on their next visit, to find the hut pulled down, and their present remaining where it had been left.  Some few articles which Mr. Raven had himself placed in a hut, when he touched there to establish his little fishery, were found three months after by his people in the same spot.

Their weather had been very bad; severe gales of wind from the north-west and heavy rains often impeding their fishery and other labour.  A shock of an earthquake too had been felt.  They had an abundance of fresh provisions, ducks, wood-hens, and several other fowl; and they caught large quantities of fish.  The soil, to a great depth, appeared to be composed of decayed vegetable substances.

From Mr. Raven, who had waited some days for the appearance of the Francis, the master received such assistance as he stood in need of; and on the 20th of October she sailed from Dusky Bay, in company with the Britannia, with whom she parted immediately, leaving her to pursue her voyage to Bengal.

Nothing appeared by this information from Dusky Bay, that held out encouragement to us to make any use of that part of New Zealand.  So little was said of the soil, or face of the country, that no judgment could be formed of any advantages which might be expected from attempting to cultivate it; a seal fishery there was not an object with us at present, and, beside, it did not seem to promise much.  The time, however, that the schooner was absent was not wholly misapplied; as we had the satisfaction of learning the event of a rather uncommon speculation, that of leaving twelve people for ten months on so populous an island, the inhabitants whereof were known to be savages, fierce and warlike.  We certainly may suppose that these people were unacquainted with the circumstance of there being any strangers near them; and that consequently they had not had any communication with the few miserable beings who were occasionally seen in the coves of Dusky Bay.