We Enquired For Him
As We Rowed Past The Fleet To No Purpose.
We put ashore and enquired; but
the noise and crowd was so great that no one attended to what we said.
At
last Tee came and whispered us in the ear, that Otoo was gone to Matavai,
advising us to return thither, and not to land where we were. We
accordingly proceeded for the ship; and this intelligence and advice
received from Tee, gave rise to new conjectures. In short, we concluded
that this Towha was some powerful disaffected chief, who was upon the point
of making war against his sovereign; for we could not imagine Otoo had any
other reason for leaving Oparree in the manner he did.
We had not been long gone from Oparree, before the whole fleet was in
motion to the westward, from whence it came. When we got to Matavai, our
friends there told us, that this fleet was part of the armament intended to
go against Eimea, whose chief had thrown off the yoke of Otaheite, and
assumed an independency. We were likewise informed that Otoo neither was
nor had been at Matavai; so that we were still at a loss to know why he
fled from Oparree. This occasioned another trip thither in the afternoon,
where we found him, and now understood that the reason of his not seeing me
in the morning was, that some of his people having stolen a quantity of my
clothes which were on shore washing, he was afraid I should demand
restitution.
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