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tiatiflg themfelves with me; they {hewed fuch confidence, opennefs,
and grateful-returns to the little trifling prefents I ufed to make
them ; they became fo attached to me, and were fo ftudious o f
rendering me fome fmall fervices, and o f warning me againft the
thieviih. practices o f fome o f their countrymen, that my heart
could not refift their infinuating and innocently kind behaviour. I
felt for many o f them emotions,, which were hot. fa far diftant
from paternal affeftion and complacency, as might' be expedted,
when we recoiled! the great difference o f our manners and our way
o f thinking. But I found likewife on this occafion, what a great
and venerable Bleffing benevolence is ; when it is. no longer the
faihionable cant, borrowed from a favourite poet, or a moral
romance, and dwelling only on mens lip s ; but when this heft gift
o f heaven fits enthroned in the heart, fills the foul with gracious
fenfations, and prompts all our faculties to, expreflions o f goodnature
and kindnefs: then only does it connedt all mankind as it.
were into one family; youths o f diftant nations become brethren,
and the older people o f one nation, find children in the offspring
o f the other. A l l thofe diftindlions which ambition, wealth,
and luxury, have, introduced, are levelled, and the inhabitant o f
the polar region, finds a warm and generous friend in the torrid
zone or in the oppofite hemifphere. Still my heart was filled with
tender afflidtion, and my eyes overflowed with tears o f genuine
forrow
forrow, when I perceived that our own civilized countries, not-
withftanding the numberlefs improvements they had received from,
the eftabliihment o f excellent laws, and the cultivation o f arts
and fciences; notwkhftanding the frequent occafions o f ftill
greater improvement, and the glorious encouragement to virtue
and morality, were far outdone in real goodnefs and benevolence
by a fet of innocent people, fo much our inferiors in many other
refpedts ; and I could not help repeatedly wiihing, that our civilized
Europeans might add to their, many advantages, that innocence
o f heart and genuine fimplicity o f manners, that fpirit o f benevolence,
and real, goodnefs, which thefe my new acquired friends
fo eminently poffeffed. .
T h e Taheiteans as individuals, not only have the feveral good
qualities above mentioned, of a domeftic. kind, but they are likewife
fenfible o f the great advantages o f a focial or civil union:
and as far as our imperfe<ft knowledge o f their language; our Ihort
flay amongft them, and the defultory inftrinftion o f Maheme and
O-Mai would permit, .1 have reafons to think, that the beginning
o f their civil fociety is founded .on paternal authority, and is. of the
patriarchal kind. The huihand and the wife o f his bofom, whom
love unites by the filken ties o f matrimony, form the firft fociety.
This union is, in thefe happy regions, firft founded on the .,call o f
nature, in mutual afliftance, and the fweet-hopes of feeing themfelves
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