herefore agreed
that I should be sent on board, on purpose to decoy her to the land,
which I promised to do.

"I was then dressed in a feathered cloak, belt, and turban, and armed
with a battle axe, the head of which was formed of a stone which,
resembled green glass, but was so hard as to turn the heaviest blow of
the hardest steel. The handle was of hard black wood, handsomely carved
and adorned with feathers. In this attire I went off in a canoe,
accompanied by a son of one of the chiefs, and four slaves. When we came
alongside of the vessel, which turned out to be an American brig,
commanded by Captain Jackson, employed in trading among the islands in
the South Sea, and then bound for the coast of California, I immediately
went on board, and presented myself to the captain, who, as soon as he
saw me, exclaimed, 'Here is a white New Zealander.'

"I told him that I was not a New Zealander, but an Englishman; upon
which he invited me into his cabin, where I gave him an account of my
errand and of all my misfortunes.

"I informed him of the danger his ship would be exposed to if he put in
at that part of the island; and therefore begged of him to stand off as
quickly as possible, and take me along with him, as this was the only
chance I had ever had of escaping.

"By this time the chief's son had begun stealing in the ship, on which
the crew tied him up, and flogged him with the clue of one of their
hammocks, and then sent him down into his canoe.

"They would have flogged the rest also had not I interceded for them,
considering that there might be still some of my unfortunate shipmates
living on shore, on whom they might avenge themselves.

"The captain now consented to take me along with him; and, the canoe
having been set adrift, we stood off from the island. For the first
sixteen months of my residence in New Zealand, I had counted the days by
means of notches on a stick; but after that I had kept no reckoning. I
now learned, however, that the day on which I was taken off the island
was January 9th, 1826. I had, therefore, been a prisoner among these
savages ten years, all but two months."

Captain Jackson now gave Rutherford such clothes as he stood in need of,
in return for which the latter made him a present of his New Zealand
dress and battle axe.

The ship then proceeded to the Society Islands, and anchored on February
10th off Otaheite.

Here Rutherford went into the service of the British consul, b