Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/324

298 joy by shouting. Some of them launched a canoe, but hesitated for some time to come near our ship, and paddled towards the Esperance which was more to windward. This little canoe was furnished with an out-rigger, and had on board seven natives, who almost immediately returned on shore.

At half past one o'clock we brought to, and dispatched from each ship a boat, with different articles, to be distributed among the inhabitants of that little island. While the boats were approaching the land as near as they could, the frigates were in readiness to protect them, in case of an attack from the savages; for the perfidy, which the inhabitants of the most southerly of the Admiralty Islands had practised on Carteret, gave us some apprehensions with regard to the intentions of those. That voyager tells us, that in September 1767, when he discovered the southern part of that archipelago, the savages attacked him with two volleys of arrows, notwithstanding the marks of friendship which he had lavished upon them.

This island was cultivated to its very summit. Several pieces of land were fenced in, which made us believe that the inhabitants were acquainted with the right of property. The whole island presented the appearance of a little round mountain,