302 MALOLO 



richly deserved for other outrages. It could not have fallen upon 

 any place where it would have produced as much effect, in impress- 

 ing the whole group with a full sense of our power and determination 

 to punish such aggressions. 



Such has been its effect on the people of Malolo, that they have 

 since been found the most civil, harmless, and well-disposed natives 

 of the group. 



Notwithstanding that the opinion of all the officers who were present 

 and cognizant of all the facts was, that I had not gone far enough in 

 the punishment I had inflicted, I found myself charged on my return 

 by the administration, as guilty of murder, and of acting on this occa- 

 sion in a cruel, merciless, and tyrannical manner. To make out the 

 latter charge, it was alleged that I had made the natives actually 

 crawl to my feet to beg pardon. The part of the whole affair for 

 which I take some credit to myself is, that when I judged it had 

 become necessary to punish, it was in like manner obligatory on me 

 to study how it could be done most effectually ; and from the know- 

 ledge I had obtained of the customs of the natives, during the time I 

 had been engaged in the group, I was enabled to perform this painful 

 though necessary duty, in a manner that made it vastly more 

 effectual, by requiring of them their own forms of submission, and 

 their own modes of acknowledging defeat. 



All the facts of the case are before my countrymen, and they will 

 be able to judge whether I should, for my conduct in the punishment 

 of this atrocious massacre, have been arraigned on a charge of murder, 

 and of acting in a cruel, merciless, and tyrannical manner, and this 

 without any previous inquiry into the facts or motives that led to my 

 actions, and merely on the report of a few discontented officers of the 

 squadron, whom the good of the service compelled me to send back to 

 the United States. These grave charges were not made known to me 

 until two days before the court was convened for my trial upon them. 



While I am unable to refrain from stating wherein I consider some 

 of the officers blamable, I must mention with high praise the promp- 

 titude with which the bodies were saved from ministering to the 

 cannibal appetites of the murderers. 



The punishment inflicted on the natives was no doubt severe: 

 but T cannot view it as unmerited, and the extent to which it was 

 carried was neither dictated by cruelty nor revenge. I thought that 

 they had been long enough allowed to kill and eat, with impunity, 

 every defenceless white that fell into their hands, either by accident 



