“The natives seized this opportunity of commencing an attack upon the ship.  First, the chief threw off the mat which he wore as a cloak, and, brandishing a tomahawk in his hand, began a war-song, when all the rest immediately threw off their mats likewise, and, being entirely naked, began to dance with such violence that I thought they would have stove in the ship’s deck.

“The captain, in the meantime, was leaning against the companion, when one of the natives went unperceived behind him, and struck him three or four blows on the head with a tomahawk, which instantly killed him.  The cook, on seeing him attacked, ran to his assistance, but was immediately murdered in the same manner.

“I now sat down on the jib-boom, with tears in my eyes, and trembling with terror.

“Here I next saw the chief mate come running up the companion ladder, but before he reached the deck he was struck on the back of the neck in the same manner as the captain and the cook had been.  He fell with the blow, but did not die immediately.

“A number of the natives now rushed in at the cabin door, while others jumped down through the skylight, and others were employed in cutting the lanyards of the rigging of the stays.  At the same time, four of our crew jumped overboard off the foreyard, but were picked up by some canoes that were coming from the shore, and immediately bound hand and foot.

“The natives now mounted the rigging, and drove the rest of the crew down, all of whom were made prisoners.  One of the chiefs beckoned to me to come to him, which I immediately did, and surrendered myself.  We were then put all together into a large canoe, our hands being tied; and the New Zealanders, searching us, took from us our knives, pipes, tobacco-boxes, and various other articles.  The two dead bodies, and the wounded mate, were thrown into the canoe along with us.  The mate groaned terribly, and seemed in great agony, the tomahawk having cut two inches deep into the back of his neck; and all the while one of the natives, who sat in the canoe with us, kept licking the blood from the wound with his tongue.  Meantime, a number of women who had been left in the ship had jumped overboard, and were swimming to the shore, after having cut her cable, so that she drifted, and ran aground on the bar near the mouth of the river.  The natives had not sense to shake the reefs out of the sails, but had chopped them off along the yards with their tomahawks, leaving the reefed part behind.

“The pigs, which we had bought from them, were, many of them, killed on board, and carried ashore dead in the canoes, and others were thrown overboard alive, and attempted to swim to the land; but many of them were killed in the water by the natives, who got astride on their backs, and then struck them on the head with their merys.  Many of the canoes came to the land loaded with plunder from the ship; and numbers of the natives quarrelled about the division of the spoil, and fought and slew each other.  I observed, too, that they broke up our water-casks for the sake of the iron hoops.