tols were thus exchanged that burst on being discharged the first time, though with the proper loading. To augment the quantity of gunpowder which was sold, it was mixed with an equal, if not a larger, proportion of pounded sea or charcoal. Several of these fire-arms, and some of the powder, were produced for my inspection in this shameful state, and with the hope that I was able to afford them redress.
Many very bad accidents had happened by the bursting of these fire-arms; one instance in particular came within our knowledge a few days after our arrival. A very fine active young chief had lately purchased a musket, and on trying its effect, with a common charge of powder, it burst; and he not only lost some of the joints of his fingers on the left hand, but his right arm below the elbow was otherways so dangerously wounded, that, had it not been for the timely assistance afforded him by some of our gentlemen of the faculty, his life would have been in imminent danger.
The putting fire-arms into the hands of uncivilized people, is at best very bad policy; but when they are given in an imperfect and insufficient condition for a valuable consideration, it is not only infamously fraudulent, but barbarous and inhuman.[1]
At Maui Captain Brown carried on a more extensive traffic and seems also to have entered into some sort of a politico-commercial agreement with Kahekili. The chiefs of that island informed the people on board the Chatham that
Mr. Brown in the Buttersworth, who had left this Isld. only a fortnight before we arrived had given them a number of Muskets, a very large quantity of Powder, and two pieces of Cannon (4 pounders)—for these last Titeeree [Kahekili] had given to him the whole right & property of the Islands Woahoo [Oahu] & Atooi [Kauai], entitling him to take off them, at his own will every thing he stood in need of, and this strange as it may
- ↑ Vancouver, op. cit., V, 48-50.
