6 June 1769

Joseph Banks's Journal: Daily Entries

Table of Contents On this day ... 6 June 1769 Endeavour Voyage Maps James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia Transcript of Cook's Journal Sydney Parkinson's Journal The authorised published account of Cook's Voyage by John Hawkesworth 1769 Annotations Index Search Contact us Search for in Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine

6 June 1769 6. In walking into the woods yesterday I saw in the hands of an Indian an Iron tool made in the shape of the Indian adzes, very different I was sure from any thing that had been carried out or made either by the Dolphin or this ship. This excited my curiosity, much the more so when I was told that it did not come out of either of those ships but from two others which came here together. This was a discovery not to be neglected. With much dificulty and labour I at last got the following account of them, viz, that in their month of Pepére which answers to our January 1768 2 Spanish ships came here commanded by a man whoom they calld To Otterah; that they lay 8 days in a bay calld Hidea, some leagues to the eastward of Matavie where the ship now lies; that during their stay they sent tents ashore and some slept in them; that they were cheifly connected with a cheif whose name was Orétte, whose younger brother they carried away with them promising to return in nine months; that they had on board their ships a woman; and that on their departure they stood to the westward as long as they were seen from the Island. I was very particular in these inquiries as the Knowledge got by them may be of some consequence. The methods I took to gain this account would be much too tedious to mention: one of my greatest dificulties was to determine of what nation they were which was done thus, I pointed to our colours and ask'd whether the ships had such or not. No, was the answer when the question was thouroughly understood. I opend a large sheet of Flaggs and askd which of them they had: Tubourai lookd stedfastly over them and at last pitchd upon the Spanish ensign and to that he adhered tho we tryd him over and over. Voyaging Accounts © Derived from State Library of NSW 1998 Transcription of Banks's Endeavour Journal page (vol.1) 264, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/banks/17690606.html