When Our Skiff Came Up With Them, Instead Of Answering The Hails Of Our
Men, They Waved Our Skiff To
Leeward with a drawn sword; on which,
thinking to fear them, and make them lower their sail, our men fired
A
random shot towards them, which they answered by firing another directly
at our skiff, followed by half a hundred arrows, to which our men
answered by plying all their muskets. But our skiff was unable to hold
way with them, as they were under sail, and had therefore to return to
the ship, with one man very dangerously wounded by an arrow in the
breast, who afterwards recovered. As we in the ship saw the skiff
returning without them, we hoisted out our long-boat, and sent her after
the two teradas, we following with the ship as near the shore as we
could with safety; for it was now of much importance that we should
speak with them, on purpose to avoid their spreading scandalous reports
of us in the country, which might have frustrated our chief hopes of
landing the ambassador at Guadal, being the place we most depended
upon, and being destitute of any other place for the purpose, should
this fail, considering the unwelcome intelligence we had got concerning
Guzerat at the Cape.
Our long boat, having fetched up with the teradas, drove them into a
bay whence they could not escape; on which the native mariners sailed so
far into the bay, that one of the teradas was cast away on the beach,
and the other had nearly shared the same fate, but was saved by our men
just without the surf.
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