Note 2 — Chapter V · CAPTAIN KING'S JOURNAL OF THE TRANSACTIONS ON RETURNING TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.1

Footnote 2:

(return)

Let the reader keep this intimation in mind, when he comes to judge of the melancholy transactions which issued in the death of Cook. It is most clear, that these people were disposed to be on good terms with their visitors; but that they were equally sensible, on the other hand, of the burden which so many half-starved guests had imposed on their hospitality. Even this, however, it would seem, they were willing to bear, provided only they had had time to make arrangements to do so, in a manner consistent with their own notions of good cheer. It is perfectly easy then to understand, that when, instead of the necessary absence of the strangers till the next season of plenty, there elapsed a few days only, as we shall find, it was impossible for them to form any other conception of the nature or object of the visit, than what served to give a very different direction to their feelings. And yet perhaps we shall be induced to believe, that all their surprise and uneasiness would have quietly subsided, if an unfortunate, and, in fact, merely partial altercation had not excited it beyond its original intensity, and produced a momentary determination to get rid by any means of such troublesome encroachers.—E.