*7h- two flutes and three drums, and we found a great number
June, . °
<----of people aflembled upon the oceafion. The drummers ac-
Monday 12, Gompanj€(j the mufick with their voices, and, to our great
fiirprize, we difcovered that we were generally the fubjedt
of the fong. We did not expedt to have found among the
uncivilized inhabitants of this fequeftered fpot, a character,
which has been the fubjedt of fuch praife and veneration
where genius and knowlege have been moft confpicuous;
yet thefe were the bards or minftrels of Otaheite. Their
long was unpremeditated, and accompanied with mufick;
they were continually going about from place to place, and
they were rewarded by the matter of the houfe, and the audience,
with fuch things as one wanted and the other could
Ipare.
Wednet 14. On the 14th, we were brought into new difficulties and
inconvenience by another robbery at the fort. In the middle
©f the night, one o f the natives contrived to fteal an iron
Coal-rake, that was made ufe of for the oven. It happened
to be fet up againft the infide of the wall, fo that the top of
the handle was vifible from without; and we were informed
that the thief, who had been feen lurking there in the evening,
came fecretly about three o’clock in the morning, and,
watching his opportunity when the centinel’s back was
turned1, very dexteroufly laid hold of it with a long crooked
flick, and drew it over the wall. I thought it of fome confe-
quence, i f poffible, to put an end to thefe practices at once,
by doing fomething that ffiould make it the common intereft
of the natives themfelves, to prevent them. I had given
ftridt orders that they ffiould not be fired upon, even when
detedted in thefe attempts, for which I had many reafons:
the common centinels were by no means fit to be entruftecJ
with a power o f life and death, to he exerted Whenever they
ffiould think fit, and1 I had already experienced that they
were
were ready to take away the lives that were in their power,
upon the flighted oceafion ; neither indeed did I think that
the thefts which thefe people committed againft us, were, in
them, crimes worthy of death: that thieves are hanged in
England, I thought no reafon why they ffiould be ffiot in
Otaheite ; becaufe, with refpeft to the natives, it would have
been an execution by a law ex poft fatlo: they had no fuch
law among themfelves, and it did not appear to me that we
had any right to make fuch a law for them. That they
ffiould abftain from theft, or be puniffied with death, was
not one of the conditions under which they claimed the advantages
of civil fociety, as it is among us ; and as I was not
willing to expofe them to fire-arms, loaded with ffiot, neither
could I perfectly approve of firing only with powder: at
firft, indeed, the noife and the fmoke would alarm them,
but when they found that no mifehief followed, they would
he led to defpife the weapons themfelves, and proceed to in-
fuks, which would make it neceflary to put them to the teft,
and from which they would be deterred by the very fight of
a gun, if it was never ufed but with effedt. At this time, an
accident furnifeed me with what I thought a happy expedient.
It happened that above twenty o f their failing canoes
were juft come in with a fupply of fiffi: upon thefe I immediately
ieized, and bringing them into the river behind the
fort, gave publick notice, that except the rake, and all the
reft of the things which from time to time had been ftolen,
were returned, the eanoes ffiould be burnt. This menace I
ventured to publiffi, though I had no defign to put it into
execution, making no doubt hut that it was well known in
whofe pofleffion the ftolen goods were, and that as reftitution
was thus made a common eaufe, they would all of them in
a ffiort time be brought back. A lift o f the things was made
out, confifting principally of the rake, the mufquet which
U 2 had
1769.
June.
Wediyef. 14.