Captain
Cook is condemned and denounced because he did not refuse the homage
of the ferocious savages, paid him as a superior creature. One of
Cook's troubles was the frantic passion the islanders had to steal
iron. The common people were the property of the chiefs, and they had
no other sense of possession. They gave away what they had, but took
what they wanted.

Mr. Dibble shows his animus when he charges that Cook did not give
the natives the real value of their hogs and fruit, and also that he
had no right to stop pilferers in canoes by declaring and enforcing a
blockade. This is a trifling technicality much insisted upon. Dibble's
account of the death of Cook is this:

"A canoe came from an adjoining district, bound within the bay. In the
canoe were two chiefs of some rank, Kekuhaupio and Kalimu. The canoe
was fired upon from one of the boats and Kalimu was killed. Kekuhaupio
made the greatest speed till he reached the place of the king, where
Captain Cook also was, and communicated the intelligence of the death
of the chief. The attendants of the king were enraged and showed
signs of hostility, but were restrained by the thought that Captain
Cook was a god. At that instant a warrior, with a spear in his hand,
approached Captain Cook and was heard to say that the boats in the
harbor had killed his brother, and he would he revenged. Captain Cook,
from his enraged appearance and that of the multitude, was suspicious
of him, and fired upon him with his pistol. Then followed a scene
of confusion, and in the midst Captain Cook being hit with a stone,
and perceiving the man who threw it, shot him dead. He also struck a
certain chief with his sword, whose name was Kalaimanokahoowaha. The
chief instantly seized Captain Cook with a strong hand, designing
merely to hold him and not to take his life; for he supposed him
to be a god and that he could not die. Captain Cook struggled to
free himself from the grasp, and as he was about to fall uttered a
groan. The people immediately exclaimed, "He groans--he is not a god,"
and instantly slew him. Such was the melancholy death of Captain Cook.

"Immediately the men in the boat commenced a deliberate fire upon the
crowd. They had refrained in a measure before, for fear of killing
their Captain. Many of the natives were killed."

"Historian Dibble does not notice the evidence that Cook lost his life
by turning to his men in the boats, ordering them not to fire. It
was at that