very morning.
Failing in this, they attempted to make prisoners of Captain Clerke and
Mr Gore. News, indeed, was brought off to the ships that they had been
captured; and Mr King, with several armed boats, was immediately
despatched to rescue them, when it was found that they had escaped the
plot, probably owing their safety to the fact that Captain Clerke
carried a pistol in his hand. Oreo must have been aware of the plot,
for he more than once asked Captain Cook why he did not go and bathe as
usual.

The chief at length set out for Bolabola, it being arranged that the
ships should follow; but a strong wind kept them in harbour, and the
next day he returned with the two deserters, who had gone from Bolabola
to the small island of Toobaee, where they were taken by the father of
Pootoe. The three captives were then released. Before leaving the
island, Captain Cook presented Oreo with an English boar and sow and two
goats. Oreo and several chiefs took a passage on board the English
ships to Bolabola, which was reached the day after they left Ulietea. A
large concourse of people, with the great chief Opoony in their midst,
were ready to receive the English.

One object Captain Cook had in putting in here was to obtain one of the
anchors which Monsieur Bougainville had lost at Otaheite, and which,
having been taken up by the people there, had been sent as a present to
Opoony. That chief, with remarkable honesty, positively refused to
accept any present till the anchor had been seen, not believing it worth
what was offered. Cook's object was to manufacture it into tools and
nails, of which he had run short. He insisted on his presents being
taken, and was glad to get the old iron for the object he had in view.
Very many years afterwards the missionary Williams was, in the same
manner, thankful to find an old anchor, out of which he manufactured the
ironwork required for the missionary vessel he was building, the
Messenger of Peace.

As a ram had before been conveyed to the island, the captain made a
present of a ewe to Opoony, hoping thus that the island might be stocked
in time with a breed of sheep.

He now prepared to take his departure for the north; and as this was the
last visit paid by Cook to these islands his opinion may be quoted,--
that it would have been better for the people of the Pacific Islands had
they never been discovered by Europeans, than once having become
acquainted with them and their go