Pondicherry, where he added some grenadiers to the expedition's complement. The expedition, now numbering 172 men, departed on 22 June 1769. Exploring the Pacific Surville sailed first to the Nicobar Islands to try to verify the presence of a Danish colony but encountered adverse winds by the time the islands were in sight. Rather than spend time maneuvering into a more favourable position for the wind, he proceeded to Malacca, arriving on 29 June 1769. An initially warm welcome from the Dutch governor soon cooled when another ship, a British vessel, arrived with allegations that the French were headed to the East Indies, where the Dutch had a monopoly. Surville promptly left, sailing to Terengganu on the Malay Peninsula and then to the islands of the Bashi Channel, between Taiwan and the Philippines, where he stocked up on water and food. Several of his crew deserted and, unable to locate them, Surville kidnapped some of the Bashi islanders as replacements for the missing men. To the surprise of the majority of the expedition, Surville then sailed to the southeast, away from the ship's official destination of Canton, in accordance with his secret instructions to locate Davis Land. Proceeding to the Solomon Islands, which had not been sighted by Europeans since their discovery in 1568, the expedition's company began to suffer from scurvy. They reached the coast of Santa Isabel, in the Solomons, on 7 October 1769. At their first anchorage, which Surville named "Port Praslin", they received a hostile reception. Hoping to find fresh food to help those afflicted with scurvy, a party went ashore but was attacked by the locals. Several French were wounded, one fatally, and over 35 islanders were killed. The expedition then tried for another anchorage, but were unable to conduct any trade or resupply their ship without being attacked by hostile islanders. By this time, Saint Jean-Baptiste was short of fresh food and many of Surville's crew had died from scurvy. Morale was low, not helped by the poor condition of the ship, which was leaking. Surville was forced to find a safe anchorage, but was unwilling to risk stopping at the Solomon Islands again. Instead, after consulting Tasman's charts, in mid-November he headed for New Zealand. To avoid missing landfall due to errors in longitude, he first sailed southwest across the Coral Sea, before turning eastwards at the latitude of northern New Zealand. For