A boat with one of them was sent on shore.

After a fruitless search they were returning when a canoe put off from the island with a man in it who held up the chain in his hand.
The boat's crew brought him on board to me.

On looking at the chain it was made up in the usual way...and tied with a piece of string; but in undoing it I found that the natives had untwisted every bend of the wires which contained the brass markers and after taking them off bent the wires back into their original form, with this difference, that they placed the end which is carried in the hand in the middle.

This was the first instance I had experienced of their pilfering anything and I did not chuse to proceed to extremities.

I gave the native a blanket and some biscuits and the mate gave him an old hat.
"We got into the boat to prosecute the intention of surveying the island...the native with us, towing his canoe astern.