On the 7th, the carpenters were employed in taking down the gates and pallisadoes of our little fortification, for firewood on board the ship; and one of the Indians had dexterity enough to steal the staple and hook upon which the gate turned:  He was immediately pursued, and after a chace of six miles, he appeared to have been passed, having concealed himself among some rushes in the brook; the rushes were searched, and though the thief had escaped, a scraper was found which had been stolen from the ship some time before; and soon after our old friend Tubourai Tamaide brought us the staple.

On the 8th and 9th, we continued to dismantle our fort, and our friends still flocked about us; some, I believe, sorry at the approach of our departure, and others desirous to make as much as they could of us while we staid.

We were in hopes that we should now leave the island without giving or receiving any other offence; but it unfortunately happened otherwise.  Two foreign seamen having been out with my permission, one of them was robbed of his knife, and endeavouring to recover it, probably with circumstances of great provocation, the Indians attacked him, and dangerously wounded him with a stone; they wounded his companion also slightly in the head, and then fled into the mountains.  As I should have been sorry to take any farther notice of the affair, I was not displeased that the offenders had escaped; but I was immediately involved in a quarrel which I very much regretted, and which yet it was not possible to avoid.

In the middle of the night between the 8th and 9th, Clement Webb and Samuel Gibson, two of the marines, both young men, went privately from the fort, and in the morning were not to be found.  As public notice had been given, that all hands were to go on board on the next day, and that the ship would sail on the morrow of that day or the day following, I began to fear that the absentees intended to stay behind.  I knew that I could take no effectual steps to recover them, without endangering the harmony and good-will which at present subsisted among us; and therefore determined to wait a day for the chance of their return.

On Monday morning the 10th, the marines, to my great concern, not being returned, an enquiry was made after them of the Indians, who frankly told us, that they did not intend to return, and had taken refuge in the mountains, where it was impossible for our people to find them.  They were then requested to assist in the search, and after some deliberation, two of them undertook to conduct such persons as I should think proper to send after them to the place of their retreat.  As they were known to be without arms, I thought two would be sufficient, and accordingly dispatched a petty officer, and a corporal of the marines, with the Indian guides, to fetch them back.  As the recovery of these men was a matter of great importance, as I had no time to lose, and as the Indians spoke