At length, having come before the port we were in search of, we attempted to turn into it, the wind being right out; but as it blew in violent squalls from this high land, one of these took us just after we had put in stays, payed the ship off again, and before she wore round, she was within a few yards of being driven against the rocks to leeward.  This obliged us to stand out to sea, and to make a stretch to windward; after which we stood in again, and without attempting to turn, anchored in the entrance of the bay in thirty-four fathoms water, a fine sandy bottom.  This was no sooner done, than about thirty or forty of the natives came off to us in ten or twelve canoes; but it required some address to get them alongside.  At last a hatchet, and some spike-nails, induced the people in one canoe to come under the quarter-gallery; after which, all the others put alongside, and having exchanged some breadfruit and fish for small nails, &c. retired ashore, the sun being already set.  We observed a heap of stones on the bow of each canoe, and every man to have a sling tied round his hand.

Very early next morning, the natives visited us again in much greater numbers than before; bringing with them bread-fruit, plantains, and one pig, all of which they exchanged for nails, &c.  But in this traffic they would frequently keep our goods, and make no return, till at last I was obliged to fire a musket-ball over one man who had several times served us in this manner; after which they dealt more fairly; and soon 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.