ers
and conversation, possessed of great sensibility, and have sufficient
delicacy to make them admired and beloved. The chiefs were so much
attached to our people, that they rather encouraged their stay among them
than otherwise, and even made them promises of large possessions. Under
these, and many other attendant circumstances equally desirable, it is
now perhaps not so much to be wondered at, though scarcely possible to
have been foreseen, that a set of sailors, most of them void of
connections, should be led away: especially when, in addition to such
powerful inducements, they imagined it in their power to fix themselves
in the midst of plenty, on one of the finest islands in the world, where
they need not labor, and where the allurements of dissipation are beyond
anything that can be conceived.

FATE OF THE CASTAWAYS

My first determination was to seek a supply of breadfruit and water at
Tofoa, and afterwards to sail for Tongataboo, and there risk a
solicitation to Poulaho, the king, to equip our boat, and grant us a
supply of water and provisions, so as to enable us to reach the East
Indies. The quantity of provisions I found in the boat was a hundred and
fifty pounds of bread, sixteen pieces of pork, each piece weighing two
pounds, six quarts of rum, six bottles of wine, with twenty-eight gallons
of water, and four empty barrecoes.

We got to Tofoa when it was dark, but found the shore so steep and rocky
that we could not land. We were obliged, therefore, to remain all night
in the boat, keeping it on the lee-side of the island, with two oars.
Next day (Wednesday, April 29) we found a cove, where we landed. I
observed the latitude of this cove to be 19 degrees 41 minutes south.
This is the northwest part of Tofoa, the north-westernmost of the
Friendly Islands. As I was resolved to spare the small stock of
provisions we had in the boat, we endeavored to procure something towards
our support on the island itself. For two days we ranged through the
island in parties, seeking for water, and anything in the shape of
provisions, subsisting, meanwhile, on morsels of what we had brought with
us. The island at first seemed uninhabited, but on Friday, May 1, one of
our exploring parties met with two men, a woman, and a child: the men
came with them to the cove, and brought two cocoanut shells of water. I
endeavored to make friends of these people, and sent them away for
bread-fruit, plantains, and water. S