ey and Mr. Fannen having consulted together, they
were both of opinion that we could, by an attempt, reap no other
advantage than the poor satisfaction of killing some more of the savages.
Upon leaving Grass Cove we had fired a volley towards where we heard the
Indians talking, but by going in and out of the boat our pieces had got
wet, and four of them missed fire. What rendered our situation more
critical, it began to rain, and our ammunition was more than half
expended. We, for these reasons, without spending time where nothing
could be hoped for but revenge, proceeded for the ship, and arrived safe
aboard before midnight.'"

It is a little remarkable that Captain Furneaux had been several times up
Grass Cove with Captain Cook, where they saw no inhabitants, and no other
signs of any but a few deserted villages, which appeared as if they had
not been occupied for many years, and yet, in Mr. Burney's opinion, when
he entered the same cove, there could not be less than fifteen hundred or
two thousand people.

On Thursday, the 23rd of December, the Adventure departed from, and made
sail out of, the Sound. She stood to the eastward, to clear the straits,
which was happily effected the same evening; but the ship was baffled for
two or three days with light winds before she could clear the coast. In
this interval of time the chests and effects of the ten men who had been
murdered were sold before the mast, according to an old sea custom.

When Captain Cook was in the Sound on his third voyage, he learned that
the massacre arose over an unpremeditated quarrel. Kahura, who had been
active in the tragedy, told Cook that a Maori having brought a stone
hatchet to barter, the man to whom it was offered took it, and would
neither return it nor give anything for it, and on which the owner
snatched some bread from the party of Europeans, who were at dinner on
the beach, as an equivalent, and then the quarrel began. Kahura himself
had a narrow escape of being shot, while another was shot beside him; and
the Europeans, outnumbered, were surrounded and killed. It was also
stated by the natives that not one of the shots fired by the party of
Captain Furneaux led by Mr. Burney to search for the missing people had
taken effect so as to kill or even to hurt a single person.

APPENDIX II.

THE DEATH OF WHAREUMU (KING GEORGE).

The death of this Bay of Islands chief, who acted as protector to Mr.
Earle during his residence a