612 



INTERCOURSE — CONVICTS — MISCHIEF. 



Dec. 



learned to show less respect to their own ordinances, and have 

 been taught no others in stead. The most abandoned, profli- 

 gate habits and ideas, have been encouraged by the latter 

 classes of visitors. By their fire-arms, ammunition, and spi- 

 rituous liquors, — exchanged every where for provisions, and 

 for the gratification of their animal inclinations, — lamentable 

 effects have been caused. 



Some men-of-war have allowed an unrestrained intercourse 

 with the natives, receiving them on board, and permitting 

 them to remain, as is still usual among the whalers. Others 

 have not admitted any on board, excepting visitors who 

 were formally received, and did not remain. Such, for ex-, 

 ample, as the Queens of the Sandwich Isles or Otaheite, 

 with their attendants. But although in that respect men-of- 

 war may have to plead guilty, they are free from any charge 

 of exciting mutual hostility between neighbours; of taking 

 any part in hostilities which were being carried on between rival 

 tribes at the times of their visits ; or of acting in any man- 

 ner which could be likely to lower Europeans in the estima- 

 tion of the natives, or to excite a feeling of animosity against 

 white men in general. 



Stray, or rather escaped convicts, are the chief draw-back. 

 Unrestrained by any religious, or even mere moral principle, 

 those abandoned men have done vast injury, but have fre- 

 quently fallen victims to the just indignation of the provoked 

 islanders, whose hospitality they abused. Convicts are sel- 

 dom brave, but usually unprincipled, designing, and cun- 

 ning ; can one then wonder at the natives of some South Sea 

 islands taking an aversion to white people, if their only ac- 

 quaintance with them has been through such characters, trans- 

 ported to Australia for life, in consequence of felony : who 

 have again, perhaps, been banished from Australia to the 

 doubly penal settlement of ' Norfolk Island f and have thence 

 escaped to wander through those countries in which they have 

 the strongest hope of avoiding apprehension. 



It is little known, and difiicult to estimate, how much 

 anarchy, tumult, and destruction of human life have been 



