the Endeavour's long boat. The Fancy and Providence arrived safe at Norfolk Island, whence they sailed for China on the 31st day of January.

This unlucky termination of the voyage of the Endeavour, when added to the difficulties and dangers which Mr. Bampton had met with in the Shah Hormuzear, on his return to India, appeared sufficient to discourage him from again venturing to speculate in Port Jackson.

In the course of this narrative, the different reports received respecting the fate of the boat which landed on Tate Island, have been stated. In a Calcutta newspaper, brought to Sydney, they now found a printed account of the whole of that transaction, which filled np that chasm in the story which the parties themselves alone could supply.

By referring to the account given in the month of July 1794, as communicated by Mr. Dell, it will appear, that the ship, having been driven to leeward of the island after the boat left her, was three days before she could work up to it. When Mr. Dell went on shore to search for Captain Hill and his companions, he could only, at his return, produce what he thought incontestable proofs of their having been murdered; such as their great coats, a lanthorn, tomahawk, &c. and three hands, one of which, from a certain mark, was supposed to have belonged to Mr. Carter. Of the boat, after the most diligent search round the island, he could find no trace. By the account now published, and which bore every mark of authenticity, it appeared, that when the boat, in which these unfortunate gentlemen were, had reached the island on the 3d of July, 1798, the natives received them very kindly, and conducted them to a convenient place for landing. After distributing some presents among them, with which they appeared very much satisfied, it was proposed, that Messrs. Carter, Shaw, and Ascott, should proceed to the top of a high land which they had noticed, and that Captain Hill should stay by the boat, with her crew, consisting of four seamen belonging to the Chesterfield.

The inland party, taking the precaution to arm, and provide themselves with a necessary quantity of ammunition, set off. Nothing unfriendly occurred during their walk, though several little circumstances happened, which induced Ascott to suspect that the natives had some design upon them; an idea, however, which was scouted by his companions.

On their return from the hill, hostile designs became apparent, and the natives seemed to be deterred from murdering them merely by the activity of Ascott, who, by presenting his musket occasionally, kept them off; but, notwithstanding his activity and vigilance, the natives at length made their attack. They began by attempting to take Ascott's musket from him, finding that he was the most likely to annoy them; directly after which, Mr. Carter, who was the foremost of the party, was heard to exclaim, " My God, my God! they have murdered me." Ascott, who still retained his musket, immediately fired, on which the natives left them and fled into the bushes. Ascott now had time to look about him, and saw what he justly deemed a horrid spectacle, Mr. Carter lying bleeding on the ground, and Mr. Shaw with a large wound in his throat. They were both, however, able to rise, and proceed down the hill to the boat. On their arrival at the beach, they called to their companions to fire; but, to their extreme horror, they perceived Captain Hill and one of the seamen lying dead on the sand, cut and mangled in a most barbarous manner. Two others of the seamen they saw floating on the water, with their throats cut from ear to ear. The fourth sailor they found dead in the boat, mangled in the same shocking manner. With much difficulty these unhappy people got into their boat, and, cutting her grapnel pulled off from this treacherous shore. While this was performing, they clearly saw the natives, whom in their account they term voracious cannibals, dragging the bodies of Captain Hill and the seamen from the beach toward some large fires, which they supposed were prepared for the occasion, yelling and howling at the same time most dismally. These wretch

ed survivors of their companions having seen, from the top of the hill whither their ill-fated curiosity had led them, a large sand bank not far from the island, determined to run under the lee of it, as they very reasonably hoped that boats would the next morning be sent after them from the ship. They experienced very little rest or ease that night, and when daylight appeared found that they had drifted nearly out of sight of the island, and to leeward of the sand bank.

Deeming it in vain to attempt reaching the bank, after examining what was left in the boat, (a few of the trifles which they had put into her to buy the friendship of the natives, and Ascott's great-coat, but neither a compass nor a morsel of provisions,) they determined, by the advice of Shaw, who of these three miserable people was the only one that understood any thing of navigation, to run direct for Timor, for which place the wind was happily fair. To the westward, therefore, they directed their course, trusting to that Providence which had delivered them from the cannibals at Tate Island.

Without provisions, destitute of water, and almost without bodily strength, it cannot be doubted that their sufferings were very great before they reached a place of safety and relief. They left the island on the 3d of July, the day on which their companions were butchered. On the 7th, having on the preceding day passed a sand-bank covered with birds, they providentially, in the morning, found two small birds in the boat, one of which they immediately divided into three parts, and were considerably relieved by eating it. On the 8th they found themselves with land on both sides. Through these straits they passed and continued their course to the westward. All that could be done with their wounds was to keep them clean by opening them occasionally, and washing them with salt water. On the 11th, they saw land, and pushed their boat into a bay, all agreeing that they had better trust to the chance of being well received on shore, than to that of perishing in the course of a day or two more at sea. There they procured some water and a roasted yam from the

!

1

natives who also gave them to understand that Timor was to the southward of them. Not thinking themselves quite so safe here as they would be at Coupang, they again embarked. They soon after found a proa in chace of them, which they eluded by standing with their boat over a reef that the proa would not encounter. On the morning of the 13th they saw a point of land a-head, which, with the wind as it then was, they could not weather. They therefore ran into a small bay, where the natives received them, calling out Bligh! Bligh!" Here they landed, were hospitably received, and providentially saved from the horror of perishing by famine.

66

This place was called by the natives Sarrett, and was distinet from Timor Land, which was the first place they refreshed at. They were also informed, that there was another small island to the northward, called by them Fardatta; but which in some charts was named Tanabor. They also understood that a proa came yearly from Banda to trade at Tanabor, and that ber arrival was expected in the course of seven or eight months. They were much gratified with this information, and soon found that they had fallen into the hands of a hospitable and humane race of people. On the 25th of July, Mr. Carter's wound was entirely healed, after having had thirteen pieces of the fractured skull taken out. But this gentleman was fated not long to survive his sufferings. He remained in perfect health until the 17th of November, when he caught a fever, of which he died on the 10th of December, much regretted by his two friends (for adversity makes friends of those who, perhaps, in other situations would never have shaken hands).

The two survivors waited in anxious expectation for the arrival of the annual trading proa from Banda. To their great joy she came on the 12th of March 1794; they sailed for Banda on the 10th of April, and arrived there on the 1st of May following, where they were received with the greatest hospitality by the governor, who supplied them with every thing necessary for people in their situation, and provided them with a passage on board an Indiaman bound to Batavia, where they arrived on the 10th of the following October; adding another to the many instances of escape from the perils which attend on those whose hard fate have driven them to navigate the ocean in an open boat.

Hard indeed was the fate of Captain Hill and Mr. Carter. They were gentlemen of liberal education, qualified to adorn the circles of life in which their rank in society placed them. How lamentable thus to perish, the one by the hands and rude weapons of barbarous savages, cut off in the prime of life and most perfect enjoyment of his faculties, lost for ever to a widowed parent and a sister whom he tenderly loved, his body mangled, roasted, and devoured by cannibals; the other, after escaping from those cannibals, to perish in a country where all were strangers to him, except his two companions in misery, to give up all his future prospects in life, never more to meet the cheering eye of friendship or of love, and without having had the melancholy satisfaction of recounting his perils, his escape, and sufferings, to those who would sympathize with him in the tale of his sorrows.

On the 10th of March the American sailed for the northwest coast of America. In her went Mr James Fitzpatrick Knaresbro', a gentleman whose hard lot it had been to be doomed to banishment for life from his native country, Ireland, and the enjoyment of a comfortable fortune which he there possessed. He lived during his residence at Parramatta with the most rigid economy and severe self-denial even of the common comforts of life.

It was remarked with concern, that the crops of this season proved in general bad, the wheat being almost every where mixed with a weed named by the farmers Drake. It was occasioned by the ground being overwrought, from a greediness to make it produce golden harvests every season, without allowing it time to recruit itself from crop to crop, or being able to afford it manure. At the Hawkesbury, where alone any promise of agricultural advantage was to be found, the settlers