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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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sometimes read of in many of ourpretty novels ; but rarely , very Tarely s-ee , in this civilized hemisphere of ours , and which * indeed , I do believe I very seldom have seen wholly tin sophisticated by some selfish passion , which interest mixes wkh them , but polish teaches to conceal , except among * the poor untaught savages of the island which gave these men birth- —where plenty and content are the portion of all , unalloyed by care , envy , or ambition—where labour is needless , and want unknown ; at least , such it was twenty-five years ago . And
after all that is said and done among us great and wise people of the earth , pray what do we all toil for , late take rest , and eat the bread of carefulness , but to reach , at last , the very state to which they are born : —ease of circumstances , and the option of being idle or busy as we please ? But if I go on this way , you will say I am a savage , and so I believe I am , and ever shall be in some points ; but let that pass . 6 these poor fellows appear to be very wretched in a state of existence so new to them , so foreign to their original manners and habits , and as their ignorance utterly disqualifies them for enjoying what they cannot comprehend the value of . and renders them useless members of
astateof civilization and refinement such as ours , I have written a public letter to Mr . Croker , and a private one to Admiral Hope , to beg they may be sent out to their own country , should the newspaper reports be true , that our government intends to send a vessel to Pitcairn ' s Island with articles of comfort and convenience for the rievediscovered progeny of the Bounty's people . This discovery naturally interested me much when I first heard of it in 1809 , at the Admiralty ; but still more has the information , given us since by Sir Thomas Staines and Captain Pipon , interested me . A very lively and general
curiosity seems to have been excited to know more about a race of beings so new and uncommon in the composition of their character , and not the less so from its purity . And even my curiosity ( gratified as it has been already by seeing man in every stage of society , from the miserable savage of New Holland to the most cultivated andT refined European ) has been awakened by the accounts of these officers ; so that , were I on the spot , and anything were going out that way , it is not at all clear to me but that I should be tempted to endeavour to go and look at this new species , as well as to judge whether the natives of Taheite have , upon the whole , been benefited , or the reverse , by their intercourse with Europe for the last twenty-five years . I
know what they were then , and I believe there are few persons , if any , now living , who possess the same means of judging of the change that may have taken place , because all those who saw them about that time were but casual visiters ; and if I may be allowed to judge from what has been written , these visiters knew just as much about the people as they did of their language ; and a man must have a strangelyconstructed head who can believe that anything which it is most interesting * to know concerning a strange people , can possibly be known ( correctly at least ) without the latter . Yet we meet with many
descriptions of their manners , customs , religion , and ceremonies , of their government and policy ( if they have any ) , that must have been comprehended . How ? Why , by the eye alone . Now is this possible ? No : and I can only say , that more than two years and a half ' s resi ? clence among them , and a ve " ry competent knowledge of their Ian-
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Tagavtfi Memoir of Captain lieywood . 811
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 811, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/19/
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