On the same day Mr. Cook displayed a very exemplary act of discipline. Some of the ship's people, who when the natives were to be punished for a fraud, assumed the inexorable justice of a Lycurgus, thought fit to break into one of their plantations, and to dig up a quantity of potatoes. For this the lieutenant ordered each of them to receive twelve lashes, after which two of them were discharged. But the third, in a singular strain of morality, insisted upon it, that it was no crime in an Englishman to plunder an Indian plantation. The method taken by our commander to refute his casuistry, was to send him back to his confinement, and not, permit him to be released, till he had been punished with six lashes more.
The Endeavour, on the 5th of December, was in the most imminent hazard of being wrecked. At four o'clock in the morning of that day our voyagers weighed, with a light breeze; but it being variable with frequent calms, they made little way. From that time till the afternoon they kept turning out of the bay, and about ten at night were suddenly becalmed, so that the ship could neither wear nor exactly keep her station. The tide or current setting strong, she drove toward land so fast; that before any measures could be taken for her security, she was within a cable's length of the breakers. Though our people had thirteen fathom water, the ground was so foul, that they did not dare to drop their anchor. In this crisis the pinnace being immediately hoisted out to take the ship in tow, and the men sensible of their danger, exerted themselves to the utmost, a faint breeze sprang up off the land, and our navigators perceived, with unspeakable joy, that the vessel made headway. So near was she to the shore, that Tupia, who was ignorant of the hair's breadth escape the company had experienced, was at this very time conversing with the Indians upon the beach, whose voices were distinctly heard, notwithstanding the roar of the breakers. Mr. Cook and his friends now thought that all danger was over; but about an hour afterwards, just as the man in the chains had cried 'seventeen fathom,' the ship struck. The shock threw them into the utmost consternation: and almost instantly the man in the chains cried out 'five fathom.' By this time, the rock on which the ship had struck being to the windward, she went off without having received the least damage; and the water very soon deepening to twenty fathoms, she again sailed in security.