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 which circumstances, if they do not amount to proofs, are strong indications that the power of the chiefs, where property is concerned, is not arbitrary, but at least so far circumscribed and ascertained, as to make it worth the while for the inferior orders to cultivate the soil, and to occupy their possessions distinct from each other.

With respect to the administration of justice, all the information we could collect was very imperfect and confined.  Whenever any of the lowest class of people had a quarrel amongst themselves, the matter in dispute was referred to the decision of some chief, probably the chief of the district, or the person to whom they appertained.  If an inferior chief had given cause of offence to one of a higher rank, the feelings of the latter at the moment seemed the only measure of his punishment.  If he had the good fortune to escape the first transports of his superior’s rage, he generally found means, through the mediation of some third person, to compound for his crime by a part or the whole of his property and effects.  These were the only facts that came to our knowledge on this head.