22 ANNIYEESAET ADDRESS. 



the master, even after this, by an infatuation that is altogether 



unaccountable, continued to trifle away his time on shore, and 



did not attempt to recover the boat till the attack was begun. 

 ****** * 



" The next morning, the weather being fine, we veered the ship 

 close in shore with a spring upon our cable, so that we brought 

 our broadside to bear upon the watering-place for the protection 

 of the boats that were to be employed there. As there was 

 reason to suppose that the natives, whom we had seen among 

 the trees the night before, were not now far distant, I fired a 

 couple of shots into the wood before I sent the waterers ashore ; 

 I also sent the lieutenant in the cutter well manned and armed 

 with the boat that carried them, and ordered him and his people 

 to keep on board and be close to the beach to cover the watering 

 boat while she was loading, and to keep discharging muskets into 

 the wood on each side of the party that were filling the water. 

 These orders were well executed. The beach was steep so that 

 the boats could lie close to the people that were at work ; and 

 the lieutenant from the cutter fired three or four volleys of small 

 arms into the woods before any of the men went on shore, and 

 none of the natives appearing, the waterers landed and went to 

 work. But notwithstanding all these precautions, before they 

 had been on shore a quarter of an hour, a flight of arrows was 

 discharged among them, one of which dangerously wounded a 

 man that was filling water in the breast, and another stuck into 

 a bareca on which Mr. Pit cairn was sitting. The people on board 

 the cutter immediately fired several volleys of small arms into 

 that part of the wood from which the arrows came, and I recalled 

 the boats that I might eff'ectually drive the Indians from their 

 ambuscades with grape-shot from the ship's guns. When the 

 boats and people were on board we began to fire, and soon after 

 saw about two hundred men rush out of the woods and run along 

 the beach with the utmost precipitation. "We judged the coast 

 to be now eff"ectually cleared, but in a little time we perceived 

 that a great number had got together on the westernmost point 

 of the bay, where they probably thought themselves beyond our 



