Among
other things of this sort, was a portion of the keel quite thirty feet
long, the keelson bolts, keelson, and floor-timbers all attached. This
was the only instance in which we discovered any metal; and this we
found, only because the fragment was too strong and heavy to be
manageable. We looked carefully, in all directions, in the hope of
discovering something that might give us an insight into the nature of
the disaster that had evidently occurred, but, for some time without
success. At length I strolled to a little distance from the landing,
and took a seat on a flat stone, which had been placed on the living
rock that faced most of the island, evidently to form a
resting-place. My seat proved unsteady, and in endeavouring to adjust
it more to my mind, I removed the stone, and discovered that it rested
on a common log-slate. This slate was still covered with legible
writing, and I soon had the whole party around me, eager to learn the
contents. The melancholy record was in these precise words: viz.--
"The American brig Sea-Otter, John Squires, master, _coaxed_ into
this bay, June 9th, 1797, and seized by savages, on the morning of the
11th. Master, second-mate, and seven of the people killed on the
spot. Brig gutted first, then hauled up _here_, and burnt to the
water's edge for the iron.
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