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possession of the ship. The boy Davies`escaped into the hold, where he lay concealed for several days, till they were fairly glutted with human blood, when they spared his life. The woman says, that she was discovered by an old savage, and that she moved his heart by her tears and embraces; that he (being a subordinate chief) carried her to Tippuhee, who allowed him to spare her life. She says, that at this time the deck was covered with human bodies, which they were employed in cutting up; after which, they exhibited a most horrid song and dance, in honour of their victory, and concluded by a hymn of gratitude to their god.

Tippahce now took the speaking trumpet, and, hailing the poor wretches at the mast-head, told them that he was now captain, and that they must in future obey his orders. He then ordered them to

unbend the sails, they readily complied; but when he ordered them to come down, they hesitated, but he enforced prompt obedience, by threatening to cut away the mast. When they came down, he received them with much civility, and told them he would take care of them; he immediately ordered them into a canoe, and sent them ashore. A few minutes after this, the woman went ashore with her deliverer. The first object that struck her view, was the dead bodies of those men lying naked on the beach. As soon as she landed, a number of men started up, and marched towards her with their patoo patoos; a number of women ran screaming betwixt them, covered her with their clothes, and, by their tears and entreaties, saved her life. The horrid feasting upon human flesh which followed would be too shocking for description. The second mate begged his life at the time of the general massacre; they spared him for a fortnight, but afterwards killed and eat him.

I think had the captain received Tippa. hee with a little more civility, that he would have informed him of his danger, and saved the ship; but that, from being treated in the manner I have mentioned, he entered into the plot along with the others.

I think it is likely that I will receive
little thanks for this ample detail of such a
melancholy businesss; but I can assure
you, it has been very unpleasant for me to
write it; and I could only have been in-
duced to do it, from a sense of duty, and a
desire to give you all the information in
my power, which, I suppose, may be of
some use. I am, Sir, your most obedient
humble servant,
ALEX. BERRY.

Mr George Brown, Owner
of the Ship Boyd.
Mr Nicholas,* during his residence

Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand. 2 vols. 8vo. 1817.

in New Zealand, received some parti-
culars respecting the origin of this
horrible massacre. A New Zealand
chief, to whom the English gave the
name of George, had resided for some
time at Port Jackson, in New South
Wales. Wishing to return to his na-
tive country, he engaged to Captain
Thompson to work as a sailor, on con-
dition of obtaining a free passage.
According to the account given by
himself, he fell sick on the voyage,
and was unable to work; but the
captain, treating this illness as feign-
ed, ordered him to be tied up to the
gangway, and most severely flogged.
George urged his character of chief as
a claim to better treatment, which
was treated by the captain with deri-
sion as an insolent and unfounded
pretension. George muttered, with
dreadful emphasis, that, when they
arrived, they would find him to be a
chief; but the import of this speech
was not perceived; and he afterwards
carefully dissembled his resentment.
It is suspected to have been at his
suggestion that the captain ran the
ship into Wang Arrooa, where George's
tribe resided. As soon as they arriv
ed, the captain stripped George of
every thing English which he had a-
bout him, and sent him on shore al-
most naked. The chief presented
himself in this state before his tribe,
and gave them a full detail of his
wrongs; upon which a cry for ven-
the plan formed, which so fatally suc-
geance was immediately raised, and
ceeded. It seems, the captain, when
he came on shore, was immediately
knocked down by Tippouie, the bro
ther of George; and the sailors ac-
companying him speedily shared the
same fate. Tippahee is here repre-
sented as having used every effort to
save the sailors, whom he invited
down from the mast head; and the
whole of his conduct appears in more
favourable colours than in Captain
In fact, though,
Berry's narrative.
from the general tenor of the letter,
we might suppose that chief to have
been a ringleader in the massacre,
this does not appear to have been real-
ly the case, since Captain Berry, at
the end, gives it as his opinion, that,
had this chief been civilly treated, he
might have informed of the danger,
and not entered into the plot along
with the others.

Captain Berry, in his letter, alludes

to Tippahee having been twice at Port Jackson. Mr Nicholas gives some particulars of his deportment at that settlement, which appear worthy of being extracted.

"Among the different New Zealanders thus brought to Port Jackson, some were chiefs or kings, supposed to have considerable influence with their countrymen, who yielded a ready obedience to their authority. The most remarkable of these was Tippahee, who came to the colony during the time of Governor King, from the Bay of Islands, where, by the account he gave of himself, he was a ruler of great power and extensive possessions. Both the Governor and the gentlemen of the colony were particularly attentive to him, nor were they a little surprised to find in a man totally unacquainted with any one rule of civilized comportment, an acute shrewdness of remark, and nicety of discrimination, which they had never before thought compatible with a state of rude barbarism. The colonists still hold in remembrance many of his remarks, which equally shew the solidity of his understanding and the justness of his conceptions. On our remonstrating with him on the absurdity and inconvenience of his customs, he immediately censured some of our own as far more ridiculous, and many of his arguments were both rational and convincing. Like most of the New Zealand chiefs, he was highly tattooed, a mode of disfiguring the face which is generally practised by all the savage tribes in the Pacific Ocean. The barbarous process consists in pricking on the face with a sharp instrument, a variety of semicircular and other figures, and rubbing into the punctures a kind of blue paint, or sometimes charcoal, which gives to the countenance a most disgusting appearance, and makes it truly hideous to the eye of an European. On being laughed at one day by a gentleman for having disfigured his face in so unnatural a manner, the sagacious chief immediately retorted with pointed sarcasm; telling him he was quite as much an object of derision himself for having put powder and grease in his hair, a practice which he thought was much more absurd than the tattooing. "He could not reconcile the rigour of our penal code with his own ideas of justice, which were certainly regulated by strong feelings of humanity. A person who had been sent out to the colony as a convict, having stolen some pigs during the time the chief happened to be there, was condemned to death, and Tippahee, on being made acquainted with the crime and the punishment, inveighed against the latter as unnecessarily cruel and unjustly severe. Reasoning on the subject with a great deal of natural logic, he said,

if the man had stolen an axe or any thing else of essential utility, he ought to suffer death, but not for stealing a pig, to which he was prompted most probably by hunger. He interested himself very warmly in favour of the culprit, and earnestly pressed the Governor for his pardon, while dining one day with a large party at his Excellency's table; but he was told it was impossible it could be granted, as the man had acted in direct violation of the laws of his country, which secured to each individual the safe possession of his property, and punished with death all those who would deprive him of it by theft or robbery. Then,' said Tippahee, why you not hang Captain ?' pointing to

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the commander of a vessel, whose name I do not immediately recollect, but who was then sitting at table;- Captain, he come to New Zealand, he come ashore, and tili (stole) all my potatoes--you hang up Cap

tain

The company were much pleased with this strong and pointed reasoning of Tippahee, and the Captain appeared quite abashed at so sudden an exposure of his conduct, for he had in reality acted as the chief represented; having sent a boat's crew on shore with orders to dig up his potatoes, which they did, without offering to make the least remuneration for them.

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Tippahee, however tenacious at first of his own manners and customs, becoming, during his short residence, more habituated to ours, and acquiring a clearer knowledge of their convenience and utility, gave them a decided preference. He also evinced an anxious desire to profit by them as much as possible; while he held the habits in which he had been educated himself, in the most sovereign contempt. Being taken one day to see a rope-walk, and shewn the method of making small twine, some of which was spun before him and the process explained, he was so affected by the contrast of our enlightened know. ledge, with the barbarous ignorance of his own countrymen, that he burst into tears, and exclaimed in the bitterness of his regret, New Zealand no good!' This fine instance of sensibility can only be appreciated by the man whose soul is equally susceptible of noble impressions, and who being blessed himself with the light of civilization and refinement, can feel for the mind that, wrapped in the darkness of barbarism, is still but too conscious of the gloom that surrounds it. Had this chief made a longer stay at Port Jackson, and been properly instructed in agriculture, there is no doubt but he would on his return have made considerable improvements among his people, and given them a turn for habits of industry and laudable exertion, which are the first and most necessary steps towards a state of humanized culture

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ferocious, and untameable savage." With these views, he strongly urges the establishment of a colony in New Zealand; a measure which would not, he conceives, be attended with any difficulty. Whether, however, Europeans could feel themselves much at ease in such a neighbourhood, where they would be liable, on the slightest umbrage, to be lodged in the stomach of these furious cannibals, is a point which we shall leave to the serious consideration of such of our readers as may be inclined to emigrate to this part of the world.

Gratitude is a prominent feature in the character of the New Zealander; and Tippahee, on his return to his own country, did not fail to evince it, for he rendered essential services to the different ships that afterwards touched at the Bay of Islands." Tippahee died some time after, and was succeeded by a relation of the name of Duaterra. This person was endowed with the same active curiosity as his predecessor. He actually determined to visit England for the sole purpose of seeing King George. He entered as a common sailor on board one of our ships, and reached Spithead, but could not effect his purpose of seeing the king; and he had

MECHANICAL INVENTIONS BY
JOHN SPENCE, IN LINLITHGOW.

Most of our readers have heard of John Spence, the ingenious individual at Linlithgow, who has applied the magnetic power to the production of a perpetual motion. We are enabled to give a short sketch of his history and invention.

suffered such scandalous ill treatment NOTICE RESPECTING SOME CURIOUS from the sailors, that he considered himself much obliged to Mr Marsden, who was going out as principal chaplain to Port Jackson, for undertaking to convey him back to New Zealand. Mr Marsden laid hold of this opening to obtain permission to send a missionary establishment into New Zealand. Duaterra, on his return to his native country, made the utmost efforts to improve and civilize it. He said to Mr Marsden with triumph, "I have now introduced the cultivation of wheat into New Zealand; New Zealand will become a great country in two years more; I shall be able to port wheat to Port Jackson, to exchange for hoes, axes, spades, tea, sugar," &c. He had actually laid down the plan of a town, to be built after the European manner, when he was unfortunately taken ill, and died.

Mr Nicholas gives a picture of the domestic character of the New Zealanders, quite similar to that drawn by Captain Cook. He assures us that Mr Marsden and he felt such full confidence in the friendship of the natives, that, on the first night of their arrival, after hearing the above horrid narrative from the mouth of George himself, they slept amid this horde of cannibals with as perfect a sense of security, as if they had been in the heart of their friends in England. He sums up their character by observing, that, in his peaceful pursuits, the New Zealander appears social, cheerful, friendly, and hospitable,-disposed to kind offices, and faithful to his engagements; but war effects a total transformation in the man, and it is then only that he becomes a cruel,

He was, in early life, put by his parents an apprentice to a shoemaker, but the natural bent of his genius leaned towards mechanics, and he never liked the employment. He says that wheels and levers occupied his mind from his earliest recollection, and that he was happy only when he was inventing, or constructing what he had invented. As soon as his apprenticeship was expired, he left his native town, and went to Glasgow, not with the view of following out the trade of a shoemaker, but in the hope of getting into an employment which would place him near some of the magnificent machines used by the manufacturers of that city. Uninstructed as an artist, however, and utterly ignorant of spinning and weaving, it was difficult for him to find a situation about a manufactory which he was fitted to fill. At last he thought himself qualified for the humble situation of the keeper of an engine, and, accordingly, engaged himself in that capacity. For two years his daily occupation was to feed the furnace, and to oil the machinery of a steam-engine; and he felt happy in the employment, for it afforded him an opportunity of looking upon wheels in motion. Tired, at last, of the sameness of the scene, he returned to Linlithgow, and endeavoured to fol

low his original trade. But the mechanical powers still haunted his imagination, and he continued to invent and construct, till he sometimes brought upon himself the admonitions of his friends, and the scoffs of his enemies, for devoting so much time to visionary inventions, as they called them, instead of attending to his trade. The invention of the long sought-for perpetual motion appeared to him a splendid enterprise, attractive by the difficulty which attended it, and it excited his ambition by the very obstacles which it presented. He directed his ingenuity to that object, and at length he produced the piece of mechanism which we are now to notice.

It is difficult to convey an idea of the invention by description. Suffice it to say, that a wooden beam, poised by the centre, has a piece of steel attached to one end of it, which is alternately drawn up by a piece of magnet placed above it, and down by another placed below it; and that, as the end of the beam approaches the magnet, either above or below, the machine interjects a non-conducting substance, which suspends the attraction of the magnet approached, and allows the other to exert its powers. Thus the end of the beam continually ascends and descends betwixt the two magnets, without ever coming into contact with either; the attractive power of each being suspended precisely at the moment of nearest approach. As the magnetic attraction is a permanently operating power, there appears to be no limit to the continuance of the motion, but the endurance of the materials of the machine. *

The machine which he at present shows is the first which he constructed. It is made of timber, and fashioned by his own hands; of course, it is rather a practical developement of the principle, than an application of it to any purpose of utility. Of its

We have observed a similar invention lately announced in London; but if the principle of the two be the same, it only adds another instance to the many already on record, of men of genius making similar and simultaneous discoveries unknown to each other, for we are persuaded that this individual had no knowledge of any similar attempt.--Edit.

applicability to useful purposes, however, there can be no doubt, for it is neither more nor less than a continually operating power equal to the attraction of one of the magnets employed. It is probable that its first application will be to chronometry; and the inventor himself has in view to construct a time-piece, of which it shall be the moving power.

The invention was known in Linlithgow a considerable time before it was known to the public; but it was despised there in the usual way, for a prophet hath no honour in his own country. The voice of fame, however, at length taught the good folks that a genius was among them, and they then crowded to see it with as much eagerness as they had formerly displayed indifference about it. A considerable number of strangers have also seen it, and all have expressed their admiration of the ingenuity, and, at the same time, the simplicity of the contrivance. Encouraged by such a favourable reception, the inventor is now constructing two pieces of me chanism upon this new principle, the machinery of which will be made by tradesmen, and he means to exhibit them in Edinburgh about the middle of June.

We may add, to save those who may wait upon the inventor from being disappointed with his appearance, that he is a plain, but shrewd and sagacious, Scotsman. He is a person of very sober and industrious habits, and has as little of the enthu siastical visionary in his composition, but with as full a reliance on his own powers, as any genius we have met with. His genius is of Nature's formation entirely. His education has been no higher than that of the operative mechanics of Scotland in general, viz. reading, writing, and arithmetic; but he has an intuitive perception of every principle connected with mechanics, which, he says, is better than knowledge derived from books. It was he who invented the car exhiin which the person travelling supbited some time ago in Edinburgh, with his feet. He came from Linplies the moving power by pressure lithgow to Edinburgh in it himself, and passed the mail-coach on the way. He has also made several other inventions, which we are unable, at present, to particularize.

OBSERVATIONS ON LORD BINNING'S -on their report, the justices may grant warrant for conveying the said person to the asylum of the district.

BILL FOR THE ERECTION OF DIS-
TRICT ASYLUMS IN SCOTLAND.

MOST of our readers are no doubt aware, that a bill has been introduced into Parliament by Lord Binning, the object of which is to make provision for the care and maintenance of pauper lunatics in Scotland. This bill has been submitted to the consideration of the Scotch counties, all of whom have decidedly objected to it, on grounds more or less comprehensive, some opposing the principle of the measure, while others confine their objections to its particular clauses.

In the plan, which has been made public for the consideration of those who are to be affected by it, it is proposed to divide Scotland into four districts, in each of which an asylum is to be erected, the expence of which is to be defrayed by a county rate. For the purpose of carrying this act into execution, the different counties belonging to each of the districts are to elect commissioners, to be called district commissioners. In addition to these, three other commissioners are to be appointed, one by the district commissioners, who must be a freeholder or justice of the peace for the district, and two by his Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department. They are to be called general commissioners, their business being to superintend generally the execution of the act in the four districts into which the country is to be divided. These two sets of commissioners are to consult together on the most proper place for erecting the asylums, of which a plan is to be sent to the genewal commissioners for their approbation. The whole power of regulating the internal management of these asylums, of arranging the number of medical assistants and other officers and servants, of making appointments, and of fixing all salaries, is to be vested in the general commissioners. When any district asylum is reported to be complete, the minister of the parish, on due notice of this from the district commissioners, is to lay the same before the kirk-session, who are thereupon empowered to order every pauper lunatic to be taken before two or more justices of the peace, by whom he is to be remanded to the examination of physicians fully qualified, and

Such seem to be the leading provisions of the law proposed by Lord Binning, the progress of which is for the present so properly stopt by the general disapprobation of those to whose consideration it has been submitted. In matters of this nature, where new laws are to be framed af fecting the general interests of a large class of the community, and introduc ing the strong hand of authority where it was never known before, we cannot be too cautious. Every step we take should be scrupulously examined. Every inch of ground, if we may so express ourselves, should be disputed, and it is only after we sce every objection answered, and every difficulty removed, that we can with propriety agree to the restraints necessarily imposed by such laws on the general freedom of the community. The motive of the author of this scheme may be laudable and benevolent, and we have no doubt that it is so. But, in addition to this, we must be satisfied, that his benevolence is wisely directed, seeing that examples are unfortunately not wanting of laws originating in the purest intentions, having nevertheless been the occasion of most extensive and irreparable mischiefs.

1st, As to the principle of the measure, to which, in many cases, strong objections have been made, we greatly doubt whether there is any necessity for applying in this matter to the Legislature for authority to enforce upon the people of Scotland the duties of benevolence. The act, indeed, sets out with declaring, "That great distress has been experienced in Scotland from the want of fit places wherein to confine and take care of fatuous and furious persons." That individual cases of hardship may have occurred from this cause, we do not question; but that the distress experienced has either been great or general, we cannot believe, otherwise private benevolence would have multiplied those asylums in proportion to the wants of the community. To succour the afflicted of whatever condition is unquestionably one of our most sacred duties. We accordingly find, that, as society gradually improves in civilization and know

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