TONGATABOO. 5 
thermometer 71° 75’. The weather by six in the morning had cleared 
and we had the wind light from the westward. The clouds were seen 
flying rapidly from the northeast. 
On the 13th the wind still continued from the southward and west- 
ward, but light clouds were still flying from east-northeast, and the sea 
was rough and uncomfortable. We had passed over the place as- 
signed to the Rosetta Shoal, and I believe I may safely state it does 
not exist in that place. 
On the 14th we made Sunday Island, the Raoul of D’Entrecasteaux. 
It is high and rugged, and had every appearance of being volcanic; 
the rocks rise like basaltic columns. The island affords no anchorage, 
and the wind being light, I was not able to get near enough to send a 
boat to land and procure specimens; the sea, also, was very rough. 
Sunday Island, according to our observations, lies in latitude 29° 12’S., 
and longitude 178° 15’ W., which agrees well with its established posi- 
tion; it is said to be inhabited by a few white men, and some of the 
officers reported that they saw smoke. 
On the 15th, we fell in with the Tobacco Plant, American whaler, 
Swain, master, that left the United States about the same time we did. 
She had not been very successful. A singular circumstance is con- 
nected with this ship during her cruise: H. B. M. ship Herald, Captain 
Nias, whom we met in Sydney, picked up, several months since, off 
Java Head, four hundred miles from land, a whale-boat, with six men, 
who reported to Captain Nias that they had left the ship Tobacco Plant, 
which had been burnt at sex. They were taken on board the Herald, 
most kindly treated, brought and landed in New South Wales. The 
crew of the Herald presented them with £100, and Captain Nias 
allowed them to sell their boat; besides all this, they were amply sup- 
plied with clothes. This report of the loss of the ship seemed placed 
beyond contradiction, and to meet her afterwards caused us great. 
surprise. A day or two after we had lost sight of the ship, a man 
whom JI had taken on board as a distressed seaman, confessed that he 
had deserted from her, and also informed us that the six men had left 
the ship at sea in an open boat, in consequence of the ill treatment they 
had received from the captain, and the short allowance of -provisions 
on board. The manner in which they carried on their deception upon 
Captain Nias, his officers, and crew, was remarkable, and shows how 
much commiseration all classes of men feel for those in distress, and 
how unwilling they are to scrutinize a tale of sorrow, when they have 
the apparent evidence before them of its truth. These men were 
upwards of twenty days on board the Herald, and yet I was told that 
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