PREFACE* 



Ivii 



the King at his house, " they walked,'' continues 

 Mr. Parkinson, " to a house, where they were in- 

 formed by a native he was ; and, having invited 

 him to go on board, he readily consented. Some 

 of the women, and others of his attendants, how* 

 ever, who probably were apprehensive of some de- 

 sign, earnestly begging and entreating that he 

 would not go, he hesitated for a moment. At this 

 important crisis three Indians arrived, in a canoe, 

 from the other side of the bay, with an account of 

 one of their principal Earees being shot by the peo- 

 ple in the boats."* Every body knows the result. 

 The natives became enraged ; and Capt. Cook, per* 

 sisting in his design of getting the King on board, 

 perished, in an undertaking as contemptible as it 

 was unjustifiable. 



The author will now proceed to make a few 

 more extracts from the voyages of Capt. Cook, as 

 they are collected and arranged " from authentic 

 journals of several principal officers, and other gen- 

 tlemen of the most distinguished naval and philo- 

 sophical abilities, who sailed in the various ships,'^ 

 as is stated in the multifarious titlepage, to which 

 the reader is referred for farther particulars. 



" At the time our people were getting some large 

 logs into the boat, the sentry presented his piece at 

 one of the natives; and, without the least apparent 

 cause, fired at, and killed him. The fellow of a 

 sentry pretended that the man had laid his arrow 

 across his bow, so that he apprehended himself in 

 danger. But this had been frequently done out of 

 a bravado, to show they were armed equally with 

 ourselves. Capt. Cook was highly exasperated at 

 this rascal's rash conduct ; and most of the people 

 fled with precipitation. As they ran off, we ob» 



VOL. 1. 



Parkinson, 334, &c. 



8 



