56 ADDRESS. 



great, were everything which a wise and enlightened philanthropy 

 could suggest for its alleviation be successfully accomplished. 

 The human heart is long destined, as in times bygone, to be 



lashing themselves to her weather side, where they remained a prey to the most 

 gloomy forebodings until morning. 



The earliest glimmerings of returning day had no sooner appeared in the east, than 

 the eleven survivors launched the remaining boat from the ship, and proceeded to 

 examine the reef, along which they rowed about two miles from the wreck, when they 

 succeeded in getting upon dry land. Here they remained two days and two nights, 

 with nothing to subsist on, except a few pounds of bread which they had taken from 

 the wreck, with about four gallons of water. They had also secured a few of their 

 clothes, two or three cutlasses, a musket, and a pair of pistols. 



On the third morning after their landing, as soon as daylight appeared, the first 

 objects which met their view were thirty or forty canoes, rapidly approaching them. 

 Captain Barnard immediately told his men that they would be surrounded by savages, 

 and advised them to submit without resistance. The leading canoe, filled with naked 

 savages, soon approached the shore, and then lay to, in order more closely to examine 

 the shipwrecked strangers. The latter, perceiving that the natives were evidently 

 waiting for some intimation of their feelings on this occasion, displayed a shirt on an 

 oar, as a signal of amity and submission, when the savages immediately landed, and 

 very unceremoniously seized their clothes and weapons, which they conveyed to their 

 canoe. Having thus stripped their involuntary and defenceless guests, they called out 

 to them, in an authoritative voice, made intelligible by violent gesticulations, for the 

 Americans to accompany them to the ship for more plunder. Compliance followed, 

 of course, and the wreck was soon plundered of everything that could be carried 

 away in the canoes, particularly fire-arms and other weapons. After thus thorouglily 

 stripping the Mentor, all the canoes, except one, departed j and the savages in that 

 made signs to the seamen to throw them a rope, and they would tow them to land. 

 They accordingly did so ; but as they approached the land, the natives in the canoe 

 used such menacing gestures towards the boat's crew, that the captain ordered Benja- 

 min Nute to cut the towline, and the Americans immediately pulled away from her. 

 The savages resented this manoeuvre by throwing their war-clubs and spears at the 

 retreating crew, by one of which missiles the face of a seaman was dreadfully shat- 

 tered. They succeeded, however, in making their escape to the open sea, preferring 

 to encounter the tender mercies of the billows, than the sufferings which might await 

 them on shore. 



At sundown, they again beheld land, and on the ensuing day succeeded in reaching 

 it, but in a state of the utmost exhaustion. This was a small uninhabited island, 

 situated about half a mile from a larger one. They succeeded in getting on shore, 

 where they soon saw a canoe approach them with two savages in it, who held up 

 a fish in token of amity. The Americans responded to the signal by exhibiting a 

 large crab. This interchange of telegraphic signs appeared to satisfy the natives, 

 who immediately landed, and approached the Americans with apparent pleasure and 

 confidence, evidently gratified at the unexpected meeting. After some time, they 

 made signs for the seamen to follow them into their canoes, and then proceeded 

 towards the larger island ; on their way to which, they were soon surrounded by 



