Thenceforth they are his cattle:  drudges, born
   To bear his burdens, drawing in his gears,
   And sweating in his service, his caprice
   Becomes the soul that animates them all.

“It is considered,” says the missionary account, “as the distinctive mark of their regal dignity, to be every where carried about on men’s shoulders.  As their persons are esteemed sacred, before them all must uncover below their breast.  They may not enter into any house but their own, because, from that moment, it would become raa, or sacred, and none but themselves, or their train, could dwell or eat there; and the land their feet touched would be their property.”  It sometimes happens in other countries, it is true, that men can be found base enough to emulate beasts of burden, by drawing the carriages of their sovereign lords.  This, however, is only on some peculiar occasions, where certain clear indications of personal superiority have been manifested, to induce the mass of the people to revert to the notion of their own pristine lowliness.  The Otaheitan princes, on the other hand, practise less self-denial in such imposition; or, which is perhaps more likely to be the truth, they find their continuance in an exalted situation very requisite to discriminate their office, which could not be inferred from any superiority of character they possess; for, says the same account, “the king and queen were always attended by a number of men, as carriers, domestics, or favourites, who were raa, or sacred, living without families, and attending only on the royal pair; and a worse set of men the whole island does not afford for thievery, plunder, and impurity.”  If this opinion be correct, one might safely infer, that the monarchy of Otaheite is of very old standing, or, in other words, that the royal blood is run to the dregs.  And what though it be?  Cannot the pageantry of state suffice for all the ends of good government in Otaheite, as well as any where else?  It is very foolish, to say no more of it, to be exclaiming with the poet,

   But is it fit, or can it bear the shock
   Of rational discussion, that a man,
   Compounded and made up like other men,
   Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
   And folly in as ample measure meet,
   As in the bosoms of the slaves he rules,
   Should he a despot absolute, and boast
   Himself the only freeman of his land?

This is to overlook, entirely, the existence of certain springs in a government, which ensure its not stopping, for a considerable time after the corruption or even disorganization of what is apparently its head and source of vitality.  It is to imagine that a political constitution depends for its preservation on the same identical principles which gave it origin, and that none other can be substituted in their place, without breaking up the whole machine.  It is to forget, that after a certain period of society, the whims and vices of the nominal chief are of little more importance, than the movements and attitudes of a dancing doll.  “Habit,” says Mr Hume, in his sensible way, “soon consolidates what other principles of human nature had imperfectly founded; and men once accustomed to obedience never think of departing from that path, in which they and their ancestors have constantly trod, and to which they are confined by so many urgent and visible motives.”—­E.]