POST-CAPTAINS OF 1803.
775
of the opposite berth, likewise heard what this man said to me. I immediately dressed myself, and went up the fore hatchway: having got upon the booms on the larboard side, I walked aft as far as the quarter of the boat, and saw the Captain standing on the larboard side of the quarter-deck, a little before the binnacle, in his shirt, with his hands tied behind him, and Mr. Christian standing on the right hand side of him, with a drawn bayonet in his hand, and a small pistol in his pocket. He (Mr. Christian) was. giving orders to Mr. Cole, the boatswain, to hoist the large cutter out, the small one having been got out some time before. Upon this, I came a little farther forward, and crossing over to the other side, saw Mr. Christian beckon to Mr. Thomas Hayward, who, with Mr. John Hallet, was standing on the quarter-deck, between the two 4-pounders; he said to him, ‘Get yourself ready to go in the boat, Sir.’ Mr. Hayward made answer, ‘Why? Mr. Christian, what harm did I ever do you that you should be so hard upon me? I hope you won’t insist upon it.’ Mr. Christian repeated the same order to him, and to Mr. Hallet, who seemed to be in tears, and answered, ‘I hope not, Sir.’ Hearing this, and being afraid that if I came in his sight he might give me similar orders, which I feared very much, because I had just before asked one of the men, whom I saw with a musket in his hand, why they were getting the boats out? and he answered, ‘that the Captain, with some individuals, were to be sent on shore at Tofoa, in the launch; and he believed that all the rest who were not of Mr. Christian’s party, might either accompany them, or remain on board and be carried to Otaheite, where they would be left among the natives, as the ship was going there, to procure refreshments and stock, to take to some unknown island, in order to form a settlement.’ Hearing this, I was so perplexed and astonished, that I knew not what to do or think; but sat down on the gunwale of the ship, on the starboard side, just under the fore shrouds, and weighed the difference of those two dreadful alternatives in my mind. I considered that the Indians at Tofoa, being of the same stock as those at Annamooka, appeared to me to be a very savage sort of people when unawed by the sight of fire-arms, and from whom nought but death could be expected, in order to facilitate their obtaining possession of the boat, and whatever she might contain of most value to them; thinking also, that their natural ferocity might be sharpened and increased to revenge by the treatment some of the chiefs of Annamooka had received on board the ship, two days before, when we left that island, as they had been confined on board, in order to make them produce a grapnel which had been stolen; the news of which, I made no doubt, had by this time reached Tofoa; and besides, I considered that a small boat, deeply laden with a number of men, and provisions for their sustenance, would be a very precarious and forlorn hope to trust life to, in sailing across so vast an expanse of ocean as lay between that island and the nearest civilized port: that in pursuing this plan, death appeared to me inevitable in the most horrid and dreadful form of starvation. On the other hand, I knew the natives of Otaheite, from the experience I had had of them during a stay of twenty-three weeks on shore there, to be
