Among the weaknesses of the Indian islanders
may be mentioned their fondness for external show
and pomp, and the facility with which their judgment
is carried away by a parade of them. Those
concerned in governing them are aware of this,
and external pomp and ceremony become important
instruments of government. They are apt
enough, indeed, to measure, at once, a man’s greatness
by the richness of his trappings and decorations,
or the number of his retinue. Mr Marsden
states, that the Sumatrans consider that we have
degenerated from the virtues of our ancestors, because
our men do not wear full-bottomed wigs*and
laced coats, nor our women hooped-pettieoats and
high head-dresses! *
* Dampier gives a most accurate representation of this feature
of the native character, in the following ludicrous anecdote
: “ Among the rest of our men that did use to dance thus
before the general, there was one John Thacker, who was a seaman
bred, and could neither write nor read, but had formerly
learnt to dance in the music-houses about Wapping. This
man came into the South Seas with Captain Harris, and getting
with him a good quantity of gold, and being a pretty
good husband of his share, had still some left, besides, what
he laid out in a very good suit of clothes. The general supposed,
by his garb and his dancing, that he had been of
noble extraction, and, to be satisfied of his quality, asked of
one of our men, if he did not guess aright of him ? The man
of whom the general asked this question told him he was
much in the right, and that most of our ship’s company were
I am now to offer the reader a portrait of the-
vices of the Indian islanders, an invidious undertaking,
but I shall endeavour to delineate it without
extenuating or amplifying.
Revenge, the vice of all barbarians, is the most
prominent in the character of the Indian islanders.
They can hardly forgive an injury, and are capable
of harbouring the longest and the deepest rooted
resentment. In a state of society where there is no
regular administration of justice, but where the security
of every man’s honour, life, and property,
depends in no small degree upon his own arm, we
may almost hesitate whether to pronounce the passion
of revenge a virtue or a vice. Without it,
at all events, soeiety could not exist. All the
tribes of the Archipelago, without exception, are
tinctured more or less with this vice; but, as
we may naturally suppose, its most baleful influof
the like extraction, especially all those that had fine clothes ;
and that they came abroad only to see the world, having money
enough to bear their expences wherever they came ; but
that for the rest, those that'had but mean clothes, they were
only common seamen. After this the general shewed a great
deal of raspect to all that had good clothes, but especially to
John Thacker, till Captain Swan came to know the business,
and marred all, undeceiving the general, and drubbing the
nobleman; for he was so much incensed against John Thacker,
that he could never endure him afterwards, though the
poor fellow knew nothing of the matter.”— Dampier s Voyages,
p. 361, 362.
VOL. I , £