1774. HOUND THE WORLD. 331 



which was his being of too low a rank for this honour- 

 able employment ; saying he was no Earee, but a 

 Manakouna, and, therefore, was not a fit person to be 

 sent ; that an Earee ought to be sent to speak to an 

 Earee ; and as there were no Earees but Otoo and 

 myself, it would be much more proper for me to go. 

 All his arguments would have availed him little, if 

 Tee and Oedidee had not, at this time, come on 

 board and given a new turn to the affair, by declaring 

 that the man who stole the musket was from Tiara- 

 bou, and had gone with it to that kingdom, so that it 

 was not in the power of Otoo to recover it. I very 

 much doubted their veracity, till they asked me to 

 send a boat to Waheatoua, the king of Tiarabou, and 

 offered to go themselves in her, and get it. I asked 

 why this could not be done without my sending a 

 boat? They said it would not otherwise be given to 

 them. 



This story of theirs, although it did not quite satisfy 

 me, nevertheless carrried with it the probability of 

 truth ; for which reason I thought it better to drop 

 the affair altogether, rather than to punish a nation 

 for a crime I was not sure any of its members had 

 committed. I, therefore, suffered my new ambassador 

 to depart with his two canoes without executing his 

 commission. The other three canoes belonged to 

 Maritata a Tiarabou chief, who had been some days 

 about the tents ; and there was good reason to believe 

 it was one of his people that carried off the musket. 

 I intended to have detained them ; but as Tee and 

 Oedidee both assured me that Maritata and his 

 people were quite innocent, I suffered them to be 

 taken away also, and desired Tee to tell Otoo, that I 

 should give myself no farther concern about the 

 musket, since I was satisfied none of his people had 

 stolen it. Indeed, I thought it was irrecoverably 

 lost ; but, in the dusk of the evening, it was brought 

 to the tents, together with some other things we had 

 lost, which we knew nothing of, by three men who 



