as came within my knowledge, of any acts of cruelty or injustice, or even
of insolent behaviour toward them; though, at the same time, they exercised
their power over one another in the most haughty and oppressive manner. Of
this I shall give two instances. A chief of the lower order had behaved
with great civility to the master of the ship, when he went to examine
Karakakooa Bay, the day before the ship first arrived there; and, in
return, I afterward carried him on board, and introduced him to Captain
Cook, who invited him to dine with us. While we were at table, Pareea
entered, whose face but too plainly manifested his indignation at seeing
our guest in so honourable a situation. He immediately seized him by the
hair of the head, and was proceeding to drag him out of the cabin, when the
captain interfered, and, after a great deal of altercation, all the
indulgence we could obtain, without coming to a quarrel with Pareea, was,
that our guest should be suffered to remain, being seated upon the floor,
whilst Pareea filled his place at the table. At another time, when
Terreeoboo first came on board the Resolution, Maiha-maiha, who attended
him, finding Pareea on deck, turned him out of the ship in the most
ignominious manner; and yet Pareea we certainly knew to be a man of the
first consequence.

How far the property of the lower class is secured against the rapacity and
despotism of the great chiefs, I cannot say, but it should seem that it is
sufficiently protected against private theft, or mutual depredation; for
not only their plantations, which are spread over the whole country, but
also their houses, their hogs, and their cloth, were left unguarded,
without the smallest apprehensions. I have already remarked, that they not
only separate their possessions by walls in the plain country, but that, in
the woods likewise, wherever the horse-plantains grow, they make use of
small white flags, in the same manner, and for the same purpose of
discriminating property, as they do bunches of leaves at Otaheite. All