Neither Can The Charge Be Understood Indiscriminately Of
The Unmarried Of The Lower Class, For Many Of These Admit Of No Such
Familiarities.
That there are prostitutes here, as well as in other
countries, is very true, perhaps more in proportion, and such were those
who came on board the ships to our people, and frequented the post we had
on shore.
By seeing these mix indiscriminately with those of a different
turn, even of the first rank, one is at first inclined to think that they
are all disposed the same way, and that the only difference is in the
price. But the truth is, the woman who becomes a prostitute does not seem,
in their opinion, to have committed a crime of so deep a dye as to exclude
her from the esteem and society of the community in general. On the whole,
a stranger who visits England might, with equal justice, draw the
characters of the women there, from those which he might meet with on board
the ships in one of the naval ports, or in the purlieus of Covent-Garden
and Drury-Lane. I must however allow, that they are all completely versed
in the art of coquetry, and that very few of them fix any bounds to their
conversation. It is therefore no wonder that they have obtained the
character of libertines.
To what hath been said of the geography of these isles, in the narrative of
my former voyage, I shall now only add, that we found the latitude of
Oaiti-piha Bay, in Otaheite, to be 17 deg. 43' 26" south, and the longitude 0 deg.
21' 25" 1/2 east from Point Venus; or 149 deg. 13' 24" west from Greenwich. The
difference both of latitude and longitude, between Point Venus and Oaiti-
piha, is greater than I supposed it to be, when I made the circuit of the
island in 1769, by two miles, and 4-3/4 miles respectively. It is therefore
highly probable, that the whole island is of a greater extent than I, at
that time, estimated it to be. The astronomers set up their observatory,
and made their observations on Point Venus, the latitude of which they
found to be 17 deg. 29' 13" south. This differs but two seconds from that which
Mr Green and I found; and its longitude, viz. 149 deg. 34' 49" 1/2 west, for
any thing that is yet known to the contrary, is as exact.
Mr Kendal's watch was found to be gaining on mean time 8" 863 per day,
which is only 0" 142 less than at Queen Charlotte's Sound, consequently its
error in longitude was trifling.
[1] "We heard that about the time mentioned by the natives, Don Juan
de Langara y Huarte, sent out from the port of Callao in Peru, had
visited Otaheite, but what the particulars of that voyage are, has
never transpired." - G.F.
[2] We anticipated such an opinion in a former volume, and cannot
refrain quoting the following observations in support of it.
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