The ships being securely moored, we began our other necessary business the next day.  The observatories were carried ashore, and placed upon an elevated rock on one side of the cove, close to the Resolution.  A party of men, with an officer, was sent to cut wood, and to clear a place for the conveniency of watering.  Others were employed to brew spruce-beer, as pine-trees abounded here.  The forge was also set up, to make the iron-work wanting for the repairs of the fore-mast.  For, besides one of the bibs being defective, the larboard trestle-tree and one of the cross-trees were sprung.

A considerable number of the natives visited us daily; and every now and then we saw new faces.  On their first coming, they generally went through a singular mode of introducing themselves.  They would paddle, with all their strength, quite round both ships, a chief, or other principal person in the canoe, standing up with a spear, or some other weapon, in his hand, and speaking, or rather hollowing, all the time.  Sometimes the orator of the canoe would have his face covered with a mask, representing either a human visage, or that of some animal; and, instead of a weapon, would hold a rattle in his hand, as before described.  After making this circuit round the ships, they would come alongside, and begin to trade without further ceremony.  Very often, indeed, they would first give us a song, in which all in the canoe joined, with a very pleasing harmony.

During these visits, they gave us no other trouble than to guard against their thievish tricks.  But, in the morning of the 4th, we had a serious alarm.  Our party on shore, who were employed in cutting wood, and filling water, observed, that the natives all around them were arming themselves in the best manner they could; those, who were not possessed of proper weapons, preparing sticks, and collecting stones.  On hearing this, I thought it prudent to arm also; but, being determined to act upon the defensive, I ordered all our workmen to retreat to the rock, upon which we had placed our observatories, leaving the natives in quiet possession of the ground where they had assembled, which was within a stone’s throw of the Resolution’s stern.  Our fears were ill-grounded; these hostile preparations were not directed against us, but against a body of their own countrymen, who were coming to fight them; and our friends of the Sound, on observing our apprehensions, used their best endeavours to convince us that this was the case.  We could see that they had people looking out on each point of the cove, and canoes frequently passed between them and the main body assembled near the ships.  At length, the adverse party, in about a dozen large canoes, appeared off the S. point of the cove, where they stopped, and lay drawn up in a line of battle, a negotiation having commenced.  Some people in canoes, in conducting the treaty, passed between the two parties, and there was some speaking on both sides.  At length, the