252 cook's voyage to april, 



which was within a stone's throw of the Resolution's 

 stern. Our fears were ill-grounded : these hostile 

 preparations were not directed against us, but against 

 a body of their own countrymen, who were coming 

 to fight them ; and our friends of the Sound, on ob- 

 serving our apprehensions, used their best endeavours 

 to convince us that this was the case. We could see 

 that they had people looking out, on each point of 

 the cove, and canoes frequently passed between them 

 and the main body assembled near the ships. At 

 length the adverse party, in about a dozen large canoes, 

 appeared off the south point of the cove, where they 

 stopped, and lay drawn up in line of battle, a nego- 

 ciation having commenced. Some people in canoes, 

 in conducting the treaty, passed between the two 

 parties, and there was some speaking on both sides. 

 At length, the difference, whatever it was, seemed 

 to be compromised ; but the strangers were not al- 

 lowed to come along-side the ships, nor to have any 

 trade or intercourse with us. Probably we were the 

 cause of the quarrel ; the strangers, perhaps, being 

 desirous to share in the advantages of a trade with 

 us ; and our first friends, the inhabitants of the Sound, 

 being determined to engross us entirely to them- 

 selves. We had proofs of this on several other oc- 

 casions ; nay, it appeared that even those who lived 

 in the Sound were not united in the same cause ; for 

 the weaker were frequently obliged to give way to the 

 stronger party, and plundered of every thing, with- 

 out attempting to make the least resistance. 



We resumed our work in the afternoon, and the 

 next day, rigged the foremast ; the head of which 

 being rather too small for the cap, the carpenter 

 went to work to fix a piece on one side, to fill up 

 the vacant space. In cutting into the mast-head for 

 this purpose, and examining the state of it, both cheeks 

 were found to be so rotten that there was no possi- 

 bility of repairing them j and it became necessary to 

 get the mast out, and to fix new ones upon it. It 



