On this day ...
10 October 1769
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
The Passage from Oteroah to New Zealand
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After dinner, I directed Tupia to ask the boys, if they had now any objection to going ashore, where we had left their uncle, the body having been carried off, which we understood was a ratification of peace: they said, they had not; and the boat being ordered, they went into it with great alacrity: when the boat, in which I had sent two midshipmen, came to land, they went willingly ashore; but soon after she put off, they returned to the rocks, and wading into the water, earnestly entreated to be taken on board again; but the people in the boat, having positive orders to leave them, could not comply. We were very attentive to what happened on shore, and keeping a constant watch with our glasses, we saw a man pass the river upon another raft, and fetch them to a place where forty or fifty of the natives were assembled, who closed round them, and continued in the same pace till sunset: upon looking again, when we saw them in motion, we could plainly distinguish our three prisoners, who separated themselves from the rest, came down to the beach, and having waved their hands three times towards the ship, ran nimbly back and joined their companions, who walked leisurely away towards that part which the boys had pointed to as their dwelling-place; we had therefore the greatest reason to believe that no mischief would happen to them, especially as we perceived that they went off in the clothes we had given them.
After it was dark, loud voices were heard on shore in the bottom of the bay as usual, of which we could never learn the meaning.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 295, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/295.html