'334 
AN ACCOUNT OF 
lhould conceive, will be difpofed to allow, that their lives 
do credit to human nature; and that, however untutored, 
however uninformed, their manners prefent an interefling 
picture to mankind.—We fee a defpotic government with¬ 
out one fhade of tyranny, and power only exercifed for ge¬ 
neral happinefs, thefubjedls looking up with .filial reverence 
to their King.—And, whilfi a mild government, and an affec¬ 
tionate confidence, linked their little ftate in bonds of har¬ 
mony, gentlenefs of manners was the; natural refult, and 
fixed a brotherly and difinterefted intercourfe among one 
another. x . • .f 
I am well aware, that in the expedition againfi: Pele- 
lew, the deflroying the houfes and plantations of the little 
ifland belonging to it, which the natives, through fear*, had 
abandoned, as well as the killing thdfe whom they captured 
in battle, are both of them circumftances which will appear 
to militate againfi: that humanity which, throughout this 
work, I have attributed to the people of Pelew.— -Refpe.61- 
ing the firfl, though the landing in an enemy’s country, 
and fpreadirig devaluation and diftrefs, is by no means a 
practice new in the annals of hiftory, political necejjity 
qualifying the meafure ; yet in thefe regions it feemed alfo 
to militate fo much againfi: their accuftomed maxim, never 
to take an enemy by furprize , but to give previous 'notice of 
a meditated attack , that I am ftrongly inclined to think that 
this might have been a new art of war fuggefted to the 
' - King 
