Once Cook fired on the crew of a canoe merely for refusing to stop and answer questions about their habits and customs, and killed four of them--an act of which he calmly notes that he himself could not, on reflection, approve.

On the other hand he insisted on discipline, and flogged his sailors for robbing native plantations.

For that age he was singularly humane, and so prudent that he did not lose a man on his first and most troubled visit to New Zealand.

During this voyage he killed ten Maoris.

Later intercourse was much more peaceful, though Captain Furneaux, of Cook's consort, the _Adventure_, less lucky, or less cautious, lost an entire boat's crew, killed and eaten.
Cook himself was always able to get wood and water for his ships, and to carry on his surveys with such accuracy and deliberation that they remained the standard authority on the outlines of the islands for some seventy years.