after several of them came on board.  At this time we were preparing to warp farther into the bay, and I was going in a boat, to look for the most convenient place to moor the ship in.  Observing too many of the natives on board, I said to the officers, “You must look well after these people, or they will certainly carry off something or other.”  I had hardly got into the boat, before I was told they had stolen one of the iron stanchions from the opposite gang-way, and were making off with it.  I ordered them to fire over the canoe till I could get round in the boat, but not to kill any one.  But the natives made too much noise for me to be heard, and the unhappy thief was killed at the third shot.  Two others in the same canoe leaped overboard, but got in again just as I came to them.  The stanchion they had thrown over board.  One of them, a man grown, sat bailing the blood and water out of the canoe, in a kind of hysteric laugh; the other, a youth about fourteen or fifteen years of age, looked on the deceased with a serious and dejected countenance; we had afterwards reason to believe he was his son.[1]

At this unhappy accident, all the natives retired with precipitation.  I followed them into the bay, and prevailed upon the people in one canoe to come alongside the boat, and receive some nails, and other things, which I gave them; this in some measure allayed their fears.  Having taken a view of the bay, and found that fresh water, which we most wanted, was to be had, I returned on board, and carried out a kedge-anchor with three hawsers upon an end, to warp the ship in by, and hove short on the bower.  One would have thought that the natives, by this time, would have been so sensible of the effect of our fire-arms, as not to have provoked us to fire upon them any more, but the event proved otherwise; for the boat had no sooner left the kedge-anchor, than two men in a canoe put off from the shore, took hold of the buoy rope, and attempted to drag it ashore, little considering what was fast to it.  Lest, after discovering their mistake, they should take away the buoy, I ordered a musket to be fired at them; the ball fell short, and they took not the least notice of it; but a second having passed over them, they let go the buoy, and made for the shore.  This was the last shot we had occasion to fire at any of them, while we lay at this place.  It probably had more effect than killing the man, by shewing them that they were not safe at any distance; at least we had reason to think so, for they afterwards stood in great dread of the musket.  Nevertheless, they would very often be exercising their talent of thieving upon us, which I thought proper to put up with, as our stay was not likely to be long amongst them.  The trouble these people gave us retarded us so long, that, before we were ready to heave the anchor, the wind began to increase, and blew in squalls out of the bay, so that we were obliged to lie fast.  It was not long before