As the New Zealanders were afraid of the British, on their arrival, and spoke to Capt. Cook in a mysterious way about killing, so a variety of reports were afterwards received from different quarters, which made him anxious about the fate of the Adventure. It was stated, that a ship like the Resolution had been lost in the Strait, that some of the people got on shore, that the natives stole their clothes, &c., for which several of them were shot; that afterwards, when they could fire no longer, the natives mastered them, killed them with their patoo-patoos, and then devoured them. The persons who brought these reports, added, that they themselves had no hand in the affair. They differed in their accounts, as to the time; but made signs to shew how the vessel had been dashed t pieces against the rocks. Such stories were told to Mr. Wales and others on shore; but when the Captain questioned the narrators on the subject, they denied every syllable they had said; so that he began to think, that these stories might refer to some of their own vessels, and their own quarrels. One day, when he had got Pedero and another into a communicative mood, he inquired if the Adventure had been here during his absence; and they stated, that she had arrived soon after his departure, had staid between ten and twenty days, and had been gone ten months; and they also asserted, that neither the Adventure, nor any other ship, had been stranded on the coast. Still, as the reports first mentioned, though in different shapes, had been heard by Lieut. Pickersgill and others, at various times, the Captain was not without suspicion that some disaster had happened. The natives, indeed, when he questioned them on the
