to be groundless, have moved him with such excess of passion.  We must indeed estimate the virtue of these people, by the conformity of their conduct to what in their opinion is right; but we must not hastily conclude that theft is a testimony of the same depravity in them that it is in us, in the instances in which our people were sufferers by their dishonesty; for their temptation was such, as to surmount would be considered as a proof of uncommon integrity among those who have more knowledge, better principles, and stronger motives to resist, the temptations of illicit advantage:  An Indian among penny knives, and beads, or even nails and broken glass, is in the same state of trial with the meanest servant in Europe among unlocked coffers of jewels and gold.

On the 26th, I mounted six swivel guns upon the fort, which I was sorry to see struck the natives with dread:  Some fishermen who lived upon the point removed farther off, and Owhaw told us, by signs, that in four days we should fire great guns.

On the 27th, Tabourai Tamaide, with a friend, who eat with a voracity that I never saw before, and the three women that usually attended him, whose names were TERAPO, TIRAO, and OMIE, dined at the fort:  In the evening they; took their leave, and set out for the house which Tubourai Tamaide had set up in the skirts of the wood; but in less than a quarter of an hour, he returned in great emotion, and hastily seizing Mr Banks’s arm, made signs that he should follow him.  Mr Banks immediately complied, and they soon came up to a place where they found the ship’s butcher, with a reaping-hook in his hand:  Here the chief stopped, and, in a transport of rage which rendered his signs scarcely intelligible, intimated that the butcher had threatened, or attempted, to cut his wife’s throat with the reaping-hook.  Mr Banks then signified to him, that if he could fully explain the offence, the man should he punished.  Upon this he became more calm, and made Mr Banks understand that the offender, having taken a fancy to a stone hatchet which lay in his house, had offered to purchase it of his wife for a nail:  That she having refused to part with it upon any terms, he had catched it up, and throwing down the nail, threatened to cut her throat if she made any resistance:  To prove this charge the hatchet and the nail were produced, and the butcher had so little to say in his defence that there was not the least reason to doubt of its truth.

Mr Banks having reported this matter to me, I took an opportunity, when the chief and his women, with other Indians, were on board the ship, to call up the butcher, and after a recapitulation of the charge and the proof, I gave orders that he should be punished, as well to prevent other offences of the same kind, as to acquit Mr Banks of his promise; the Indians saw him stripped and tied up to the rigging with a fixed attention, waiting in silent suspense for the event; but as soon as the first stroke was given, they interfered with great agitation, earnestly entreating that the rest of the punishment might be remitted:  To this, however, for many reasons, I could not consent, and when they found that they could not prevail by their intercession, they gave vent to their pity by tears.