1779* THE PACIFIC OCEAN. §9 



at us; but his conduct seeming to be highly disap- 

 proved of by all the rest, we did not think it proper 

 to show any resentment. 



The next day we completed our watering without 

 meeting with any material difficulty. On our return 

 to the ships, we found that several chiefs had been on 

 board, and had made excuses for the behaviour of 

 their countrymen, attributing their riotous. conduct 

 to the quarrels which subsisted at that time amongst 

 the principal people of the island, and which had 

 occasioned a general want of order and subordination 

 amongst them. The government of Atooi was in 

 dispute between Toneoneo, who had the supreme 

 power when we were here last year, and a boy named 

 Teavee. They are both, by different fathers, the 

 grandsons of Pereeorannee, king of Woahoo, who 

 had given the government of Atooi to the former, 

 and that of Oneeheow to the latter. The quarrel 

 had arisen about the goats we had left at Oneeheow 

 the last year: the right of property in which was 

 claimed by Toneoneo, on the pretence of that island's 

 being a dependency of his. The friends of Teavee 

 insisting on the right of possession, both parties 

 prepared to maintain their pretensions by force; and 

 a few days before our arrival, a battle had been fought, 

 in which Toneoneo had been worsted. The conse- 

 quence of this victory was likely to affect Toneoneo 

 in a much deeper manner than by the mere loss of 

 the objects in dispute; for the mother of Teavee, 

 having married a second husband, who was a chief 

 of Atooi, and at the head of a powerful faction there, 

 he thought that the present opportunity was not to be 

 neglected of driving Toneoneo entirely out of the is- 

 land, and of advancing his son-in-law to the govern- 

 ment. I have already had occasion to mention that 

 the goats, which had increased to the number of six, 

 and would probably in a few years have stocked all 

 these islands, were destroyed in the contest. 



On the 4th, the mother and sister of the young 



