“In the confusion occasioned by the great throng in so narrow a space, the natives began to exercise their pilfering tricks, opportunities for which are seldom permitted to slip away unimproved. Suddenly the cook cried out, ‘They have stolen this thing;’ but scarcely had he named the thing (some kitchen article), when he called out again, ‘They have stolen the beef out of the pot!’ and then a third time, ‘They have stolen my cooking pan!’ Presently another voice bawled out from the forecastle, ‘Captain! they have broken open your trunk, and carried away your clothes!’ “Up to this time we had been in friendly intercourse with the chiefs, rubbing noses, and purchasing their personal ornaments and other curiosities, suspecting no mischief. But now, in the course of a few moments, without our perceiving the immediate reason, the whole scene was changed. We found afterward that the captain (Dibbs), on hearing of the audacious thefts above mentioned, had become angry, and while he was endeavoring, rather boisterously, to clear the deck of some of the intruders, one of them, a chief, on being jostled by him, fell over the ship’s side into the sea, between his own canoe and the vessel. This was seized instantaneously as the pretext for commencing hostilities. The women and children in the course of a few minutes had all disappeared, leaping overboard into their canoes, and taking with them the kakaous, or mantles, of the warriors. The latter, thus stripped for action, remained on deck; of which, before we were aware, they had taken complete possession; and forthwith made us their prisoners. “Tremendous were the bawlings and screechings of the barbarians, while they stamped, and brandished their weapons, consisting principally of clubs and spears. One chief with his cookies (his slaves) had surrounded the captain, holding their spears at his breast and his sides, on the larboard quarter of the vessel. Mr. Tyerman, under guard of another band, stood on the starboard; and Mr. Bennet on the same side, but aft, toward the stern. Mr. Threlkeld and his little boy, not seven years old, were near Mr. Bennet not under direct manual grasp of the savages. The chief who, with his gang, had been trafficking with Mr. Bennet, now brought his huge tattooed visage near to Mr. B.’s, screaming, in tones the most odious and horrifying: ‘Tongata, New Zealandi, tongata kakino?--Tongata, New Zealandi, tongata kakino?’