SANDWICH ISLANDS. 
157 
5. That no man’s life be taken away except by consent 
of the king, or the regent, for the time being, and of twelve 
chiefs. 
6. That the king, or regent, can grant pardons at all 
times. 
7. That all the people shall be free, and not bound to 
any one chief. 
8. That a port duty be laid on all foreign vessels. 
These, hints, it will be at once perceived, are little more 
than a recommendation quietly to pursue the old habits 
and regulations of the Islands. Tamehameha I. had begun 
to establish the hereditary transmission of estates, and Lord 
Byron’s notice only adds the sanction of the British name 
to it. The power of punishment and pardon kings have 
always arrogated to themselves; but the fifth article is in¬ 
tended to protect the people from the arbitrary violence of 
inferior chiefs, and of one another. The seventh confirms 
what was the general practice ; for the kanakas appear not 
to have been bound to the soil, but to have enjoyed the 
privilege of moving whenever and wherever it suited them. 
The recommendation of port duties may seem to be a sin¬ 
gular, if not an unnecessary, introduction of old abuses into 
this newest of worlds; but long before our arrival port dues 
had been established, and those so excessive as to threaten 
