150 cook's first VOVAGE JUNE, 



they were continually going about from place to 

 place, and they were rewarded by the master of the 

 house, and the audience, wuth such things as one 

 wanted and the other could spare. 



On the 14th, we were brought into new difficulties 

 and inconvenience by another robbery at the fort. 

 In the middle of the night, one of the natives con- 

 trivea to steal an iron coal-rake, that was made use 

 of for the oven. It happened to be set up against 

 the inside of the wall, so that the top of the handle 

 was visible from without ; and we were informed 

 that the thief, who had been seen lurking there in 

 the evening, came secretly about three o'clock in the 

 morning, and, watching his opportunity when the 

 sentinel's back was turned, very dexterously laid hold 

 of it with a long crooked stick, and drew it over the 

 wall. I thought it of some consequence, if possible, 

 to put an end to these practices at once, by doing 

 something that should make it the common interest 

 of the natives themselves to prevent them. I had 

 given strict orders that they should not be fired upon, 

 even when detected in these attempts, for which I 

 had many reasons : the common sentinels were by no 

 means fit to be intrusted with a power of life and 

 death, to be exerted whenever they should think fit, 

 and I had already experienced that they were ready 

 to take away the lives that were in their power upon 

 the slightest occasion ; neither, indeed, did I think 

 that the thefts which these people committed 

 against us were, in them, crimes worthy of death : 

 that thieves are hanged in England, I thought no 

 reason why they should be shot in Otaheite ; because, 

 with respect to the natives, it would have been an 

 execution by a law ex 2^ost facto. They had no such 

 law among themselves, and it did not appear to me 

 that we had any right to make such a law for them. 

 That they should abstain from theft, or be punished 

 with death, was not one of the conditions under 

 which they claimed the advantages of civil society. 



