After the Ship was moved into deeper water I went with the Pinnace and Yawl Man'd and Arm'd and landed upon the Island accompan'd by M^r Banks and D^r Solander       We had scarce landed before all the Canoes left the Ship and landed at different parts of the Island, and before we could well look about us we was ^were surrounded by 2 or 3 hundred people and notwithstanding that they were all arm'd they came upon us _^^{in such} that a confused Stragleing manner that we hardly suspected that the[y] meant us any harm - but in this we was ^were very soon _^^undeceaved for upon our indeavouring to draw a line on the sand between us and them they set up the war dance and immediatly some of them attempted to seize the two Boats     being disappointed in this, they next attempted to break in upon us, upon which I fir'd a Musquet load with small shott at one of the forwardest of them, and M^r Banks and 2 of the men fired immediatly after; this made them retire back a little; but in less than a minute one of the Chiefs rallied them again, D^r Solander seeing this gave him a peppering with small shott which sent him off and made them retire a second time; they attempted to rally several times after a and only seem'd to want some _^^one of resolution to head them; but they were at last intirely dispersed by the Ship fire a few shott over their heads and a Musquet now and then from us —

In this skirmish only one or two of them was hurt with small Shott,  for I avoided killing any one of them as much as possible and for that reason withheld our people from fireing. We had observed that some had hid themselves in a Cave in one of the Rocks, and some time after the whole was over we went towards them, the Chief who I have mintiond to have been on board the Ship happen'd to be one of these, he his wife and a nother man came out to meet us but the rest made off; these three people came and set down by us and we gave them of such things as we had about us. After this we went to another part of the Island where some of the inhabitants came to us and were as meek as Lambs. Having taken a Veiw of the Bay from the Island and loaded both boats w_^^th sellery, which we found here in great plenty, we returnd on board and at 4 AM hove up the Anchor in order to put to sea with a light breeze at East but it soon falling Calm obliged us to Come too again, and about Eight or 9. oClock seeing no probabillity of our get_^^ing to sea I sent the Master with two boats to sound the harbour, but before this I order'd Math^w Cox, Hen^ry Stevens and Man^l Paroyra to be punished with a dozⁿ lashes each for leaving thier duty when a shore last night and diging up Potatoies out of one of the Plantations, the first of the three I remited back to confinement because he insisted that their was no harm in what he had done. All this fore noon had abundance of the Natives about the Ship and some few on board; we trafficked with them for a few trifles in which they dealt very fair and friendly —

Voyaging Accounts