They return to the Ship. i6i 
were green, and the bread-fruit not in feafon ; befides moft of 
the trees, ihrubs, and plants that- are common to the South Sea 
ifiands, New Zealand, and New Holland. 
Soon after our return to the Ihip, we hoi lied in the boat and 
made fail to the weft ward, being refolved to fpend no more 
time upon this coaft, to the great fatisfaftion of a very con- 
fiderable majority of the {hip’s company. But [ am forry to 
fay that I was ftrongly urged by fome of the officers to fend a 
party of men afhore, and cut down the cocoa-nut trees for the 
fake of the fruit. This I peremptorily refufed, as equally un- 
juft and cruel. The natives had attacked us merely for landing 
upon their coaft, when we attempted to take nothing away, 
and it was therefore morally certain that they would have made 
a vigorous effort to defend their property if it had been invaded, 
in which cafe many of them muft have fallen a facrifice' to our 
attempt, and perhaps alfo fome of our own people. I Ihould 
have regretted the necefiity of fuch a meafure, if I had been in 
want of the neceffaries of life ; and certainly it would have 
been highly criminal when nothing was to be obtained but two 
or three hundred of green cocoa-nuts, which would at moft 
have procured us a mere transient gratification. I might indeed 
"have proceeded farther along the coaft to the northward and 
weftward, in fearch of a place where the ihip might have lain 
fo near the fhore as to cover the people with her guns when 
they landed,- but this would have obviated only part of the 
mifchief, and though it might have fecured us, it would probab- 
ly in the very aft have been fatal to the natives. Befides, we 
had reafon to think that before fuch a place would have been 
found, we Ihould have been carried fo far to the weftward as to 
have been obliged to go to Satavia, on the north fide of Java; 
which I did not think fo fafe a paffage as to the fouth of Java, 
through the Streights of Sunday : the fhip alfo was fo leaky 
that I doubted whether it would not be necefliiry to -heave her 
down at Batavia, which was another reafon for making the 
beft of our way to that place; efpecially as no difcovery could 
be expefted in feas which had already been navigated, and 
where every coaft had been laid down by the Dutch geographers. 
The Spaniards indeed, as well as the Dutch, feem to have 
circum -navigated all the ifiands in New Guinea, as almoft every 
place that is diftinguifhed in the chart has a name in both lang- 
uages. The charts with which I compared fuch part of this 
coaft as 1 vifited, are bound up with a French work, intitled, 
“ Hiftoire des Naviga^iones aux Terres Auftrales,” which 
was publithed in 1756, and I found them tolerably exaft ; yet 
I kn cw not by whom, nor when they were taken : and though 
New Holland and New Guinea are in them reprefented as 
two diftinft countries, the very hiftory in which they are bound 
Bp, leaves it in dcubt. I pretend however to no more merit 
O z in 
