xii 



PREFACE. 



quality, being found on board our ship, were made 

 prisoners, and threatened with death, if the goat 

 should not be restored within a certain time. 



" The youths protested their own innocence, and 

 disclaimed all knowledge of the guilty persons, 

 notwithstanding which, every preparation was ap- 

 parently made for putting them to death. Large 

 ropes were carried upon the main deck, and made 

 fast fore and aft ; axes and chains, &c. were placed 

 upon the quarter deck, in sight of the young men, 

 whose terrors were increased by the information of 

 Omai, who gave them to understand, that, by all 

 these preparations, their doom was finally deter- 

 mined. Under these gloomy apprehensions, the 

 poor youths remained till the 9th, when, about three 

 in the afternoon, a body of between fifty and sixty 

 natives were seen from the ship, hastening to the 

 harbour, who, when they came near, held up the 

 goat in their arms, in raptures that they had found 

 it, and that it was still alive. The joy of the impri- 

 soned young men is not to be expressed ; and when 

 they were released, instead of showing any signs of 

 resentment, they were ready to fall down and wor- 

 ship their deliverers. It can scarcely be credited, 

 when the devastation ceased, how soon the injury 

 was forgotten, and provisions again brought to 

 market, as if no violence had ever been committed 

 by us. Only the Earee of the Island never made his 

 appearance. 



After premising that he has quoted but a small part 

 of the cruehies practised by Cook and other English 

 navigators, the author will leave the Reviewer in 

 possession of his triumph, merely adding a few ob- 

 servations. — Captain Cook fell in a struggle with the 

 natives of Owyhee, in which he himself, as is ac- 



See Journal of an Officer, quoted in vol. v. of the Collection. 



