1770. ROUND THE WORLD. 3? 



up a dead man, as our cook-maids divide a dead rab- 

 bit for a fricassee, would feel as little horror in com- 

 mitting a murder as in picking a pocket, and conse- 

 quently would take away life with as little compunc- 

 tion as property ; so that men, under these circum- 

 stances, would be made murderers by the slight 

 temptations that now make them thieves. If any 

 man doubts whether this reasoning is conclusive, 

 let him ask himself, whether in his own opinion 

 he should not be safer with a man in whom the 

 horror of destroying life is strong, whether in con- 

 sequence of natural instinct unsubdued, or of early 

 prejudice, which has nearly an equal influence, than 

 in the power of a man who under any temptation to 

 murder him would be restrained only by considerations 

 of interest ; for to these all motives of mere duty may 

 be reduced, as they must terminate either in hope of 

 good, or fear of evil. 



The situation and circumstances, however, of these 

 poor people, as well as their temper, are favourable 

 to those who shall settle as a colony among them. 

 Their situation sets them in need of protection, and 

 their temper renders it easy to attach them by kind- 

 ness ; and whatever may be said in favour of a 

 savage life among people who live in luxurious idle- 

 ness upon the bounty of nature, civilization would 

 certainly be a blessing to those whom her parsimony 

 scarcely furnishes with the bread of life, and who are 

 perpetually destroying each other by violence, as the 

 only alternative of perishing by hunger. 



But these people, from whatever cause, being in- 

 ured to war, and by habit considering every stranger 

 as an enemy, were always disposed to attack us when 

 they were not intimidated by our manifest superio- 

 rity. At first, they had no notion of any superiority 

 but numbers ; and when this was on their side, they 

 considered all our expressions of kindness as the arti- 

 fices of fear and cunning, to circumvent them, and pre- 

 serve ourselves : but when they were once convinced 



d 3 



