They had afterwards visited Easter Island, Nootka Sound, Cook's River, Kamschatka, Manilla, the Isles des Navigateurs, Sandwich and the Friendly Islands.

M.la Perouse had also anchored off Norfolk Island, but could not land, on account of the surf.

In this long voyage he had not lost any of his people by sickness; but two boats crews had unfortunately perished in a surf on the north-west coast of America; and at Masuna, one of the Isles des Navigateurs, M.L'Angle, Captain of the Astrolabe, had met with a fate still more unfortunate.

That officer had gone ashore with two long boats for the purpose of filling some water casks.

His party amounted to forty men, and the natives, from whom the French had received abundance of refreshments, and with whom they had been uniformly on the best terms, did not on their landing show any signs of a change of disposition.
Malice unprovoked, and treachery without a motive, seem inconsistent even with the manners of savages; the French officers therefore, confiding in this unbroken state of amity, had suffered their boats to lie aground.
But whether it were that the friendly behaviour of the natives had proceeded only from fear, or that some unknown offence had been given, they seized the moment when the men were busied in getting out the boats, to make an attack equally furious and unexpected.