The captain then asked me into the cabin, where I found Maquina in irons, with a guard over him. He looked very melancholy, but on seeing me his countenance brightened up, and he expressed his pleasure with the welcome of "_Wocash_, John," when, taking him by the hand, I asked the captain's permission to take off his irons, assuring him that, as I was with him, there was no danger of his being in the least troublesome. He accordingly consented, and I felt a sincere pleasure in freeing from fetters a man who, though he had caused the death of my poor comrades, had nevertheless always proved my friend and protector, and whom I had requested to be thus treated, only with a view of securing my liberty. Maquina smiled, and appeared much pleased at this mark of attention from me. When I had freed the king from his irons, Captain Hill wished to learn the particulars of our capture, observing that an account of the destruction of the ship and her crew had been received at Boston before he sailed, but that nothing more was known, except that two of the men were living, for whose rescue the owners had offered a liberal reward, and that he had been able to get nothing out of the old man, whom the sailors had supplied so plentifully with grog as to bring him too much by the head to give any information. I gave him a correct statement of the whole proceeding, together with the manner in which my life and that of my comrade had been preserved. On hearing my story, he was greatly irritated against Maquina, and said he ought to be killed. I observed that, however ill he might have acted in taking our ship, yet that it might perhaps be wrong to judge an uninformed savage with the same severity as a civilised person, who had the light of religion and the laws of society to guide him. That Maquina's conduct in taking our ship arose from an insult that he thought he had received from Captain Salter, and from the unjustifiable conduct of some masters of vessels who had robbed him, and, without provocation, killed a number of his people. Besides, that a regard for the safety of others ought to prevent his being put to death, as I had lived long enough with these people to know that revenge of an injury is held sacred by them, and that they would not fail to retaliate, should we kill their king, on the first vessel or boat's crew that should give them an opportunity; and that, though he might consider executing him as but an act of justice, it would probably cost the lives of many Americans.