walk, but in this short distance Mr. Hill lost himself.  The next day, parties were sent out different ways, and boats were sent both up and down the harbour in search of him; a gun for their and his direction was fired from the ship every two hours, and this continued for two days.  The third day, many additional parties were sent, to the number of nine or ten; in short, every piece of ground where it was thought possible he might have passed, was traversed over and over by the different parties, but without effect; we had, therefore, much reason to believe that he fell in with a party of the natives, who probably murdered him, for he had no arms of any kind with him.

That this opinion of a disposition in the natives to take advantage of a single person, particularly when unarmed, is not ill founded, we have had many instances to prove; one of which in this place may suffice, as it had happened very recently, and near to the place where Mr. Hill was lost.  A man belonging to the Sirius, who had generally been employed in shooting for the officers, was, a few days previous to the supposed death of Mr. Hill, in the woods looking for game, and had been seen by a party of the natives from the skirts of a wood; they had not been observed by him, and taking the advantage of that, threw a large stone at him, which very narrowly missed his head, at which it was very well aimed; had it hit him, it would have knocked him down and deprived him of his senses, which opportunity they would no doubt have availed themselves of to dispatch him; but as they did not succeed in their attempt, they stood their ground, and he fired a charge of small shot at them, which I suppose they felt no inconvenience from, as they laughed at him, and advanced with their lances; he was pretty quick in loading his gun again, into which he put a heavy charge of buck shot, and as they appeared to him to be determined on mischief, he resolved, for his own safety, to be before-hand with them; he took very good aim, and fired right amongst them; two of them fell, and the rest, with great precipitation, made off, but he believed they carried their wounded (probably dead) friends with them; he stood where he was and loaded his gun, then came towards the ship without seeing any more of them.  They are exceedingly terrified by fire-arms.

There was one circumstance which disposed me to believe that Mr. Hill had been murdered by the people of the country, which was, that one of the boats which went down the harbour to look for him put a-shore in one of the coves in the north part of it; the young gentleman who had charge of this duty went up the beach, with five of the boat’s crew, while two remained to take care of the boat; they had only been landed a few minutes, and were near the skirt of the wood, when two spears were launched from a rising ground; one of which struck the hat of one of the seamen; and as no fire-arms had appeared, the natives showed themselves, to the number of between twenty and thirty; the midshipman and the sailors returned to the boat, and brought up a musquet loaded with ball, which the natives observing, all disappeared, except two, and the ball was fired at them; whether with or without effect we knew not, but they also disappeared immediately.