o days.
The third day, many additional parties were sent, to the number
of nine or ten; in short, every piece of ground where it was
thought possible he might have passed, was traversed over and
over by the different parties, but without effect; we had,
therefore, much reason to believe that he fell in with a party of
the natives, who probably murdered him, for he had no arms of any
kind with him.

That this opinion of a disposition in the natives to take
advantage of a single person, particularly when unarmed, is not
ill founded, we have had many instances to prove; one of which in
this place may suffice, as it had happened very recently, and
near to the place where Mr. Hill was lost. A man belonging to the
Sirius, who had generally been employed in shooting for the
officers, was, a few days previous to the supposed death of Mr.
Hill, in the woods looking for game, and had been seen by a party
of the natives from the skirts of a wood; they had not been
observed by him, and taking the advantage of that, threw a large
stone at him, which very narrowly missed his head, at which it
was very well aimed; had it hit him, it would have knocked him
down and deprived him of his senses, which opportunity they would
no doubt have availed themselves of to dispatch him; but as they
did not succeed in their attempt, they stood their ground, and he
fired a charge of small shot at them, which I suppose they felt
no inconvenience from, as they laughed at him, and advanced with
their lances; he was pretty quick in loading his gun again, into
which he put a heavy charge of buck shot, and as they appeared to
him to be determined on mischief, he resolved, for his own
safety, to be before-hand with them; he took very good aim, and
fired right amongst them; two of them fell, and the rest, with
great precipitation, made off, but he believed they carried their
wounded (probably dead) friends with them; he stood where he was
and loaded his gun, then came towards the ship without seeing any
more of them. They are exceedingly terrified by fire-arms.

There was one circumstance which disposed me to believe that
Mr. Hill had been murdered by the people of the country, which
was, that one of the boats which went down the harbour to look
for him put a-shore in one of the coves in the north part of it;
the young gentleman who had charge of this duty went up the
beach, with five of the boat's crew, while two remained to take
care of the boat; they