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[Page 11]
A third appeard but did not either come close or communicate.
A fourth came sufficiently near to see the Natives & their habitations, but did not send a Boat on shore: one must not indeed be surprized, when you consider the ruggedness of the Coast, there being scarce any Shelter, & the Sea with the least wind breaking with the greatest violence against the Cliffs.
Its longest part extends North & South so that the periodical or Trade winds that blow either from the Eastward or Westward, occasion continually a great Sea on either side. I was informd there was a landing place on the North side better than the Creek we went into with our Boats.
On our arrival here we found that John Adams was mistaken in the day of the Week & Month: he considerd it to be Sunday the 18 Sept 1811 & to his Credit they were keeping the Sabbath very properly making it a day of rest & prayer: whereas it was Saturday the 17th. by his account he had been misled by the American Captain of the Topaz when she touched here, & it was pleasing to observe, that they made the Sabbath day a day of rest, & set it apart for particular prayer & devotion.
Unfortunately the day we were here, was very tempestuous, else we could have assisted these people with many valuable & necessary articles. We may well observe that here necessity is the Mother of Invention; for the Forge they landed from the Bounty being now out of order, if not completely useless, by dint of labour & assiduity they have now got into a method for making their own Agricultural Tools, beating out their Spades out of Solid Iron & in reality very well executed. from all appearance they are not indeed in want of implements of any kind, their chief desire was for a few Muskets to kill the wild Hogs that are very abundant on the Island. Sir Tho.s Staines & myself having some French pieces, we supplied their wants & gave them Powder, as well as Cooking Utensils, of this latter they were quite destitute, but the weather was too boisterous to comply with all their wishes, notwithstanding Thursday October Christian a most