July.] On the first of this month the Daedalus sailed to convey to Captain Vancouver the provisions and stores which had been required by that officer.  Lieutenant Hanson, the naval agent on board, received the most pointed orders for the ship to return to this port immediately after having executed the service on which she was then going.  The Daedalus was considered as a colonial ship; and nothing but Captain Vancouver’s express requisition to have the stores and provisions which were on board her (the stores being chiefly articles of traffic) sent back to him, to enable him to fulfil the instructions he had received, would have induced the lieutenant-governor, in the present state of the colony, to have parted with her, when it was not improbable that her services might be wanting to procure supplies, and at no very distant period, if ships did not arrive.

The Daedalus being, like other ships which had preceded her, short of hands, the master was permitted to recruit his numbers here, and took with him six convicts, who had served their several terms of transportation, and were of good character; and two seamen, who had been left behind from other ships.  The extensive population of the islands at some of which the Daedalus might have occasion to touch rendered it absolutely necessary that she should be completely manned; as we well knew the readiness with which, at all times, their inhabitants availed themselves of any inferiority or weakness which they might discover among us.

On board of the Daedalus also was embarked a native of this country, who was sent by the lieutenant-governor for the purpose of acquiring our language.  Lieutenant Hanson was directed by no means to leave him at Nootka, but, if he survived the voyage, to bring him back safe to his friends and countrymen.  His native names were Gnung-a gnung-a, Mur-re-mur-gan; but he had for a long time entirely lost them, even among his own people, who called him ‘Collins,’ after the judge-advocate, whose name he had adopted on the first day of his coming among us.  He was a man of a more gentle disposition than most of his associates; and, from the confidence he placed in us, very readily undertook the voyage, although he left behind him a young wife (a sister of Bennillong who accompanied Governor Phillip) of whom he always appeared extremely fond.

On Saturday the 6th the intended change took place in the ration; and it being a week on which pork was to be issued, three pounds of that article were served instead of four.  The other articles remained the same.

The clergyman, who suffered as much inconvenience as other people from the want of a proper place for the performance of divine service, himself undertook to remove the evil, on finding that, from the pressure of other works it was not easy to foresee when a church would be erected.  He accordingly began one under his own inspection, and chose the situation for it at the back of the huts on the east side of the cove.  The front was seventy-three feet by fifteen; and at right angles with the centre projected another building forty feet by fifteen.  The edifice was constructed of strong posts, wattles, and plaster, and was to be thatched.* Much credit was due to the Rev. Mr. Johnson for his personal exertions on this occasion.