Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/242

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infamous commerce, the New Zeelanders went through the whole vessel, offering their daughters and sisters promiscuously to every person's embraces, in exchange for our iron tools, which they knew could not be purchased at an easier rate. It does not appear that their married women were ever suffered to have this kind of intercourse with our people. Their ideas of female chastity are, in this respect, so different from ours, that a girl may favour a number of lovers without any detriment to her character; but if she marries, conjugal fidelity is exacted from her with the greatest rigour. It may therefore be alledged, that as the New Zeelanders place no value on the continence of their unmarried women, the arrival of Europeans among them, did not injure their moral characters in this respect; but we doubt whether they ever debased themselves so much as to make a trade of their women, before we created new wants by shewing them iron-tools; for the possession of which they do not hesitate to commit an action that, in our eyes, deprives them of the very shadow of sensibility.

It is unhappy enough that the unavoidable consequence of all our voyages of discovery, has always been the loss of a number of innocent lives; but this heavy injury done to the little uncivilized communities which Europeans have visited, is trifling when compared to the irretrievable harm entailed upon them by corrupting