We agreed to accept the liberality of these hospitable strangers, with the best grace we could; but on condition, that we might be made acquainted with the price of the articles we were to be supplied with; and that Captain Clerke should give bills to the amount, upon the Victualling-Office in London. This the major positively refused; and whenever it was afterward urged, stopped us short, by telling us, he was certain, that he could not oblige his mistress more, than in giving every assistance in his power to her good friends and allies the English; and that it would be a particular satisfaction to her, to hear, that in so remote a part of the world, her dominions had afforded any relief to ships engaged in such services as ours; that he could not therefore act so contrary to the character of his empress, as to accept of any bills; but that, to accommodate the matter, he would take a bare attestation of the particulars, with which we might be furnished; and that this he should transmit to his court, as a certificate of having performed his duty. I shall leave (he continued) to the two courts, all farther acknowledgments; but cannot consent to accept any thing of the kind alluded to. When this matter was adjusted, he began to inquire about our private wants, saying he should consider himself as ill-used if we had any dealings with the merchants, or applied to any other person except himself. In return for such singular generosity, we had little to bestow but our admiration and our thanks. Fortunately, however, Captain Clerke had sent by me a set of prints and maps belonging to the last voyage of Captain Cook, which he desired me to present in his name to the commander, who being an enthusiast in every thing relating to discoveries, received it with a satisfaction which showed that, though a trifle, nothing could have been more acceptable. Captain Clerke had likewise entrusted me with a discretionary power of showing him a chart of the discoveries made in the present voyage; and as I judged that a person in his situation and of his turn of mind would be exceedingly gratified by a communication of this sort, though out of delicacy he had forborne to ask more than a few general questions on the subject, I made no scruple to repose in him a confidence of which his whole conduct showed him to be deserving. I had the pleasure to find that he felt this compliment as I hoped he would, and was much struck at seeing in one view the whole of that coast, as well on the side of Asia as on that of America, of which his countrymen had been so many years employed in acquiring a partial and imperfect knowledge.[20]