A violent storm having arisen, which drove them out of their course, and their provisions being very scanty, they suffered incredible hardships, and the greatest part of them perished by famine and fatigue.

Four men only survived when the boat overset, and then the destruction of this small remnant appeared to be inevitable.
However, they kept hanging by the side of the vessel, which they continued to do for some days, when they were providentially brought within sight of the people of this island, who immediately sent out canoes and brought them on shore.

The three men who now survived, expressed a strong sense of the kind treatment they had received; and so well satisfied were they with their present situation, that they refused an offer which was made them of being conveyed to their native country.

A very important instruction may be derived from the preceding narrative.

It will serve to explain, better than a thousand conjectures of speculative reasoners, how the detached parts of the earth, and, in particular, how the islands of the South Sea, though lying remote from any inhabited continent, or from each other, may have originally been peopled.