defence against all those who should make use of any harsh expression with regard to them, I cannot refrain from declaring the inhabitants of all the islands of this ocean to be savages, but as ranking generally, perhaps with a very trifling exception, with those men who are still one degree below the brute creation.  In a word, they are all cannibals:  We need only recollect the islanders who have already been proved to belong to this class;—­for instance, the New Zealanders, the cruel inhabitants of Fidji, the Navigateur, the Mendoza, Washington, the Tolomon, and Sandwich islands, the islands of Louisiade and New Caledonia.  The good name which the inhabitants of the Friendly islands had acquired has suffered very much by the affair of Captain Bligh, and the visit of D’Entrecasteaux, and it may now be maintained, with some degree of certainty, that they have in this respect the same taste as their neighbours in the Fidji islands, and the Isles des Navigateurs.”  He has more to the same effect, and is particular in shewing how even the Society islanders, whom he admits to be the most humane and civilized of all the natives of this region, are notwithstanding deformed with horrid crimes, from which the passage to cannibalism is very easy, supposing even that certain suspicious circumstances do not warrant the opinion that they are but recently emerged from it.  And as to the people of New Caledonia, again, of whom Cook spoke so highly, he alludes to the more recent information of D’Entrecasteaux, as giving indisputable proof of their being addicted to the same abominable enormity.—­E.]

At seven o’clock in the evening, the boats returned, with two tons of water, a few hogs, a quantity of plantains, and some roots.  Mr King informed me, that a great number of the inhabitants were at the watering or landing place.  He supposed that they had come from all parts of the island.  They had brought with them a great many fine fat hogs to barter, but my people had not commodities with them equal to the purchase.  This, however, was no great loss, for we had already got as many on board as we could well manage for immediate use, and, wanting the materials, we could not have salted them.  Mr King also told me, that a great deal of rain had fallen ashore, whereas, out at sea, we had only a few showers; and that the surf had run so high, that it was with great difficulty our men landed, and got back into the boats.

We had light airs and calms, by turns, with showers of rain, all night, and at day-break, in the morning of the 24th, we found that the currents had carried the ship to the N.W. and N., so that the west end of the island, upon which we had been, called Atooi by the natives, bore E., one league distant; another island, called Oreehoua, W. by S., and the high land of a third island, called Oneeheow, from S.W. by W. to W.S.W.  Soon after, a breeze sprung up at N.; and, as I expected that this would bring the Discovery to sea, I steered for Oneeheow, in order to take a