Ixiv 



FREFACK. 



himself, that in almost every instance, it will be 

 found, that the severities of Captain Cook origina- 

 ted on the most trifling offences, and were prosecu- 

 ted for the most insignificant purposes. The loss of 

 a sextant is punished by cutting off a man's ears, 

 and fleaing his eyebrows ; the tlieft of a boat-hook 

 is punished with death on the spot ; and the loss of 

 a single goat revenged by the burning of two hun- 

 dred houses ; the destruction of fruit-trees, the deso- 

 lation of plantations, and the conflagration of war 

 canoes. That no blood was shed on this latter oc- 

 casion, was because the wretched natives offered 

 no resistance. If they had, there is no room to 

 doubt, that the destruction of lives would have 

 equalled that of property. Captain Cook nowhere 

 attempted or affected a permanent settlement ; his 

 objects were all temporary ; and his whole conduct 

 to the natives, grounded upon the most light and 

 trivial basis. In the most important of all these cases, 

 the recovery of the goat, nothing can exceed the ex- 

 cessive disproportion of the offence committed, the 

 object to be gained, and the means resorted to for 

 that purpose. The goats were carried out by 

 Captain Cook, with the express purpose of being 

 left upon some one of these Islands ; and, if it be 

 objected, that a single goat would have been of no 

 use to these people, he had only to bestow upon 

 them a mate, and the object v^ould have been at- 

 tained. 



But the objects contemplated by Captain Porter 

 in his visit to Nooaheevah, were national, and 

 highly important. The^y v^ ere not limited to a mere 

 survey of the Island ; to wooding, v\ atering, and 

 repairing. The safety of his ship, of his prizes, of 

 his men, depended upon his maintaining his situa- 

 tion there ; and it was indispensable to all these ob- 

 jects, that the natives should either be concihated or 



