arrival proved a disappointment to most of us, yet the
information we received by it was rather interesting. We now learned,
that Mr. Dell had been at New Zealand, where he passed three months in
the river named by Captain Cook the Thames, employed in cutting spars,
for the purpose (as was conjectured here at the time of his departure) of
freighting such ship as might arrive from India on Mr. Bampton's account.
In the course of that time they cut down upwards of two hundred very fine
trees, from sixty to one hundred and forty feet in length, fit for any
use that the East India Company's ships might require. The longest of
these trees measured three feet and a half in the butt, and differed from
the Norfolk Island pines in having the turpentine in the centre of the
tree instead of between the bark and the wood. From the natives they
received very little interruption, being only upon one occasion obliged
to fire on them. Like other uncivilised people, these islanders saw no
crime in theft, and stole some axes from the people employed on shore,
gratifying thereby their predilection for iron, which, strange as it may
sound to us, they would have preferred to gold. Unfortunately, iron was
too precious even here to part with, unless for an equivalent; and it
became necessary to convince them of it. Two men and one woman were
killed, the seamen who fired on them declaring (in their usual enlarged
style of relation) that they had driven off and pursued upwards of three
thousand of these cannibals. They readily parted with any quantity of
their flax, bartering it for iron. As the valuable qualities of this flax
were well known, it was not uninteresting to us to learn, that so small a
vessel as the _Fancy_ had lain at an anchor for three months in the midst
of numerous and warlike tribes of savages, without any attempt on their
part to become the masters; and that an intercourse might safely and
advantageously be opened between them and the colonists of New South
Wales, whenever proper materials and persons should be sent out to
manufacture the flax, if the governor of that country should ever think
it an object worthy of his attention.

From New Zealand the _Fancy_ proceeded to Norfolk Island, and now came
hither in the hope of meeting with, or hearing of Mr. Bampton.

From that settlement we gained the following information:

The _Salamander_ touched there, and the _Resolution_ appeared off the
island, but had no communicatio