HMS Serpent (Hammet) investigates past attacks and notes syphilis among islanders.

What happened

The British warship HMS Serpent, under Commander L. U. Hammet, stayed two days to get provisions and learn what had happened to the Waverly, and heard how both the Waverly and the Harriet had been destroyed years before. Hammet also noted syphilis among the islanders; Hezel quotes him on a “virus…which seals up the fountains of life,” part of the infertility that helped shrink Kosrae’s population.