"It would be difficult," he writes, "to imagine the frantic gambols
that are daily played off here; sometimes dressing in red coats, and
otherwise very fantastically, and collecting a number of ignorant
natives around them, telling them that they are the great eris of the
Northwest, and making arrangements for sending three or four vessels
yearly to them from the coast with spars, &c.; while those very natives
cannot even furnish a hog to the ship. Then dressing in Highland plaids
and kilts, and making similar arrangements, with presents of rum, wine,
or anything that is at hand. Then taking a number of clerks and men
on shore to the very spot on which Captain Cook was killed, and each
fetching off a piece of the rock or tree that was touched by the shot.
Then sitting down with some white man or some native who can be a little
understood, and collecting the history of those islands, of Tamaahmaah's
wars, the curiosities of the islands, &c., preparatory to the
histories of their voyages; and the collection is indeed ridiculously
contemptible. To enumerate the thousand instances of ignorance, filth,
&c.,--or to particularize all the frantic gambols that are daily
practiced, would require Volumes."

Before embarking, the great eris of the American Fur Company took leave
of their illustrious ally in due style, with many professions of lasting
friendship and promises of future intercourse; while the matter-of-fact
captain anathematized him in his heart for a grasping, trafficking
savage; as shrewd and sordid in his dealings as a white man. As one of
the vessels of the company will, in the course of events, have to appeal
to the justice and magnanimity of this island potentate, we shall see
how far the honest captain was right in his opinion.

* It appears, from the accounts of subsequent voyagers, that
Tamaahmaah afterwards succeeded in his wish of purchasing a