to detain them, to the great injury of those who were
innocent, without answering any good purpose to ourselves: As a
temporary expedient, I permitted them to take the fish; but still
detained the canoes. This very licence, however, was productive of new
confusion and injury; for, it not being easy at once to distinguish to
what particular persons the several lots of fish belonged, the canoes
were plundered, under favour of this circumstance, by those who had no
right to any part of their cargo. Most pressing instances were still
made that the canoes might be restored, and I having now the greatest
reason to believe, either that the things for which I detained them were
not in the island, or that those who suffered by their detention had not
sufficient influence over the thieves to prevail upon them to
relinquish, their booty, determined at length to give them up, not a
little mortified at the bad success of my project.

Another accident also about this time was, notwithstanding all our
caution, very near embroiling us with the Indians. I sent the boat on
shore with an officer to get ballast for the ship, and not immediately
finding stones convenient for the purpose, he began to pull down some
part of an enclosure where they deposited the bones of their dead: This
the Indians violently opposed, and a messenger came down to the tents to
acquaint the officers that they would not suffer it. Mr Banks
immediately repaired to the place, and an amicable end was soon put to
the dispute, by sending the boat's crew to the river, where stones
enough were to be gathered without a possibility of giving offence. It
is very remarkable, that these Indians appeared to be much more jealous
of what was done to the dead than the living. This was the only measure
in which they ventured to oppose us, and the only insult that was
offered to any individual among us was upon a similar occasion. Mr
Monkhouse happening one day to pull a flower from a tree which grew in
one of their sepulchral enclosures, an Indian, whose jealousy had
probably been upon the watch, came suddenly behind him, and struck him:
Mr Monkhouse laid hold of him, but he was instantly rescued by two more,
who took hold of Mr Monkhouse's hair, and forced him to quit his hold of
their companion, and then ran away without offering him any farther
violence.

In the evening of the 19th, while the canoes were still detained, we
received a visit from Oberea, which surprised us not