L I EUT ENA NT CO O K ’s VOYAGE
battle ; for the hunger of him who is prefled by famine to
fight, will abforb every feeling, and every fentiment which
would reflrain him from allaying it with the body of his ad-
verfary. It may however be remarked, that, if this account
of the origin of fo horrid a practice is true, the mifchief
does by no means end with the neceffity that produced it:
after the practice has been once begun on one fide by hunger,
it will naturally be adopted on the other by revenge.
Nor. is this all, for though it may be pretended, by fome who
wifh to appear fpeculative and philofophical, that whether
the dead body of an enemy be eaten or buried, is in itfelf a
matter perfectly indifferent; as it is, whether the breads
and thighs of a woman fhould be covered or naked; and
that prejudice and habit only make us fhudder at the violation
of cuftom in one inftance, and blufh at it in the other:
yet, leaving:this as a point of doubtful difputation, tobe dif-
cuffed at leifure, it may fafely be affirmed, that the practice
of eating human fleffi, whatever it may be in itfelf, is relatively,
and in its confequences, moft pernicious; tending
manifeftly to eradicate a principle which is the .chief, fecu-
rity of human life, and more frequently reftr-ains the hand
of murder than the fenfe of duty, or even the fear of pu-
nifhment.
Among thofe who are accuftomed to eat the dead, death
mull have loft much of its horror ; and where there is little
horror at the fight of death, there will not be much repug,-
nance to kill. A fenfe of duty, and fear o f punifhment, may
be more eafily furmounted than the feelings of Nature, or
thofe which have been engrafted upon Nature by early prejudice
and uninterrupted cuftom. The horror of the murderer
arifes lefs from the guilt of the faff, than its natural
effeff; and he who has familiarifed the cffeff, will confe-
quently lofe much of the horror. By our laws, and our religion.
ligion, murder and theft incur the fame puniffiment, both
in this world and the next; yet, of the multitude who would u—,—
deliberately fteal, there are but very few who would deliberately
kill, even to procure much greater advantage. But
there is the ftrongeft reafon to believe, that thofe who have
been fo accuftomed to prepare a human body for a meal,
that they can with as little feeling cut up a dead man, as our
cook-maids divide a dead rabbit for a fricaffee, would feel
as little horror in committing a murder as in picking a
pocket, and confequently would take away life with as little
compundlion as property; fo that men, under thefe circum-
ftances, would be made murderers by the flight temptations
that now make them thieves. If any man doubts whether
this reafoning is conclufive, let him afk himfelf, whether in
his own opinion he fhould not be fafer with a man in whom
the horror of deftroying life is ftrong, whether in confe-
quence of natural inftinff unfubdued, or of early prejudice,
which has nearly an equal influence ; than in the power o f a
man who under any temptation to murder him would be .
reftrained only by confiderations of intereft; for to thefe all
motives of mere duty may be reduced, as they muft terminate
either in hope of good, or fear of evil.
The fituation and circumftances, however, of thefe poor
people, as well as their temper, are favourable to thofe who
fhall fettle as a colony among them. . Their fituation fets
theta in need of protection, and their temper renders it eafy
to attach them by kindnefs ; and whatever may be faid in
favour of a favage life, among people who live in luxurious
idlenefs upon the bounty of Nature, civilization would certainly
be a bleffing to thofe whom her parfimony fcarcely
furnifhes with the bread of life, and who are perpetually
deftroying each other by violence, as the only alternative of
perifhing by hunger. 8 But