I record with regret, but which it would be disingenuous
to suppress. Six marines, the flower of our battalion, were hanged by the
public executioner, on the sentence of a criminal court, composed entirely
of their own officers, for having at various times robbed the public stores
of flour, meat, spirits, tobacco, and many other articles.

CHAPTER IV.

Transactions of the Colony in April and May, 1789.

An extraordinary calamity was now observed among the natives. Repeated
accounts brought by our boats of finding bodies of the Indians in all the
coves and inlets of the harbour, caused the gentlemen of our hospital
to procure some of them for the purposes of examination and anatomy. On
inspection, it appeared that all the parties had died a natural death:
pustules, similar to those occasioned by the small pox, were thickly spread
on the bodies; but how a disease, to which our former observations had led
us to suppose them strangers, could at once have introduced itself, and
have spread so widely, seemed inexplicable.* Whatever might be the cause,
the existence of the malady could no longer be doubted. Intelligence
was brought that an Indian family lay sick in a neighbouring cove: the
governor, attended by Arabanoo, and a surgeon, went in a boat immediately
to the spot. Here they found an old man stretched before a few lighted
sticks, and a boy of nine or ten years old pouring water on his head, from
a shell which he held in his hand: near them lay a female child dead, and
a little farther off, its unfortunate mother: the body of the woman shewed
that famine, superadded to disease, had occasioned her death: eruptions
covered the poor boy from head to foot; and the old man was so reduced,
that he was with difficulty got into the boat. Their situation rendered
them incapable of escape, and they quietly submitted to be led away.
Arabanoo, contrary to his usual character, seemed at first unwilling to
render them any assistance; but his shyness soon wore off, and he treated
them with the kindest attention. Nor would he leave the place until he had
buried the corpse of the child: that of the woman he did not see from its
situation; and as his countrymen did not point it out, the governor ordered
that it should not be shown to him. He scooped a grave in the sand with his
hands, of no peculiarity of shape, which he lined completely with grass,
and put the body into it, covering it also with grass; and then he filled