Capt. Tew finding the quarter-master spoke the sentiments of his companions, took leave, and returned to his ship: but went on shore again in the evening, the wind not serving to weigh, it blowing due west. He asked the governor how he got acquainted with the natives? He answered, by meeting them a hunting, and using them well: that he wheedled one of them down to their huts, the fellow being alone, and they three in company, he supposed, thought it best to go with seeming willingness. After him several came, and they lived very friendly with them. The captain, had brought ashore with him some rum and brandy, and they were drinking a bowl of punch, when on a sudden, a violent storm arose. Capt. Tew ran to the shore, and made a signal for his boat to carry him off, but the sea ran too high to venture out of the ship. The storm all the while increased, and the Victoire, in less than two hours, parting her cables, was driven ashore where it was very steep, and perished, with all her men, in Capt. Tew’s sight.
The captain stayed with his old companions, without knowing which way to return to his friends he had left with Misson, not one of whom was (luckily for them,) on board the ship. At the end of three months they saw a large ship, which Tew believed was the Bijoux; but she took no notice of the fires they made. As he expected she would return after a short cruise, he, and his companions, made large fires every night on the shore, and visited the coast very often. About a month after this, as they came early to the sea-side, they were surprised at the sight of two sloops which lay at anchor, about a cannon shot from the shore. They had not been long looking upon them, when a canoe was hoisted out of one, and made to them, with six men who rowed, and one sitter.
Tew soon knew him to be Capt. Misson. He came ashore, and embracing the former, told him, all their proposed happiness was vanished; for without the least provocation given, in the dead of the night, the natives came down upon them in two great bodies, and made a great slaughter, without distinction of age or sex, before they could put themselves in a posture of defence; that Caraccioli (who died in the action) and he, got what men together they could, to make a stand; but finding all resistance vain against such numbers, he made a shift to secure a considerable quantity of rough diamonds and bar gold, and to get on board the two sloops with 45 men: that the Bijoux being gone to cruise, and the number of men he had carried with him in the Victoire, had weakened the colony, and given the natives the boldness to attack them, but for what reason he could not imagine.