a contest took place; stones were thrown by the natives; the English flew to their firearms; and a chief, rushing on with an iron dagger in his hand, stabbed Cook through the body. His guards, likewise, were all cut off excepting two, who escaped by swimming. The cannon of the Resolution were now fired at the crowd, and this produced an almost instantaneous retreat; though the savages, mindful even in the midst of danger of the gratification of their appetite, took care to carry along with them the bodies of their fallen enemies, in order, by feasting upon them at their leisure, to derive some trifling comfort from their disaster.
The business now was to retire as quickly as possible from the island, which they did; and having again entered Behring's Strait, and sailed about for some time among the ices of the Polar Sea, they returned by way of China and the Cape of Good Hope to England, after an absence of four years and three months.
In 1782 Ledyard sailed on board an English man-of-war for America, not with a design to serve against his country, but determined on seizing the first occasion of escape which should offer itself. An opportunity soon occurred. On arriving at Long Island, then in the possession of the English, he obtained permission of seven days' absence from the ship, for the purpose of seeing his mother, who then kept a boarding-house at Southold, occupied chiefly by British officers. "He rode up to the door, alighted, went in, and asked if he could be accommodated in her house as a lodger. She replied that he could, and showed him a room into which his baggage was conveyed. After having adjusted his dress he came out, and took a seat by the fire, in company with several other officers, without making himself known to his mother, or entering into conversation with any person. She frequently passed and repassed through the room, and her eye was observed to be
