THE YEAR 1776 OPENED WITH A SPELL OF SEVERE WEATHER UNPARALLELED IN England for decades. On 7 January much of the country was covered by the ‘greatest fall of snow … in the memory of man’, accompanied by a strong easterly wind that piled up drifts to ‘an incredible depth’. Flocks of sheep were buried, carriages overturned or immobilized, roads made impassable. Deaths from accident or exposure were of daily occurrence, while the miseries of the poor were such that charitable public men took the lead in raising funds for their relief.1 Among these benefactors the newspapers specially singled out Henry Thrale Esq., wealthy brewer and member of parliament, who gave a hundred guineas for distribution in his constituency of Southwark. As one bleak day succeeded another, there was no sign of improvement; conditions, in fact, seemed to worsen. By the middle of the month many ships loaded and ready for sailing were frozen up in the Thames and soon their crews were walking over the ice to exchange visits. On the 20th, stated the General Evening Post, the degrees of cold on a thermoscope owned by Robert Chequeleigh Esq. of Marybone ‘exceeded any felt in England for these twenty years past.’ A black servant who was employed by the same gentleman and had been in the country about half a year, the report continued, on being asked to go an errand, absolutely refused, ‘as he had never seen any snow in his life before’. Then, by accident or design, followed another paragraph: ‘Omiah, the native of Otaheite, has, for some days past, been endeavouring to skait on the Serpentine river in Hyde-park, and considering the short time he has practised, is wonderfully proficient.’2
Lichtenberg, the witness to Omai’s discomfort in the previous winter, might have found in these contrasting items further proof of the Polynesian’s superiority to the Negro. He certainly seems to have adapted himself with remarkable ease to the inclemencies of the English climate and now pursued the art of ice-skating with the zeal he had already displayed for shooting and horse-riding. His latest exploit had indeed brought him belatedly to the notice of the supreme connoisseur of celebrities. Writing on 28 January to Sir Horace Mann in Florence, Horace Walpole, stricken with gout after a drive through ‘mountains of snow and quarries of ice’, complained of the bitter weather: it was made for the North Pole, had lasted three weeks, grew worse every day. Parliament, he informed his correspondent, had met but two-thirds of the members were ‘frozen in the country’. ‘Omiah, the native of Otaheite,’ he went on, ‘breakfasted with Mr. Conway to-day, and learns to skate. He had no notion of ice, and calls it stone-water; a very good expression. If he was in Ireland they would advise him to carry some over in spirits.’ The brief anecdote with its last obscure quip relieved the gloom of a letter deploring not only the weather but the course of American affairs: the government was raising a great army of Hessians and Brunswickers that would cost millions; Boston was famishing; the fate of Quebec was not yet known.3
There is no evidence — and small probability — that Horace Walpole sought out the denizen of a region he held in so much contempt. But in his cousin Mr. Conway Omai had made a notable and sympathetic addition to the circle of his aristocratic acquaintance. General the Hon. Henry Seymour Conway, M.P. for Bury St. Edmunds, was not only distinguished as a soldier and politician but known for his liberal and independent views. He supported the cause of the American colonists and ten years earlier had arranged for the award of a royal pension to Rousseau while he sheltered in England from his enemies. In the long succession of Omai’s hosts Conway was as likely as any to have examined him in the light of that philosopher’s theories. Did he then attempt to discern beneath European costume and European manners the lineaments of natural man? Did he probe through the visitor’s carapace of politeness to discover his real views on the world about him? Possibly the veteran of Fontenoy and future field-marshal preferred to discuss military tactics with the warrior from the South Seas.4 Or in the absence of an interpreter (for by this time Mr. Andrews seems to have relinquished his sinecure), their conversation might well have foundered on the rock of Omai’s incomprehensibility.
Breakfast at Mr. Conway’s did not mark the close of Omai’s career in English society, but an end was now in sight. The day before that regrettably unrecorded function a paragraph appeared in the newspapers:
Captain Cook in the new voyage which he is going to make (Captain Clarke the commander of the second ship) is to take Omiah to Otaheite, and from thence to proceed upon the discovery of the North-West Passage to the northward of California. Parliament has just offered 25,000 1. reward, 20,000 1. to those who approach within one degree of the Pole; but there are to be no Botanists, Designers, &c. to accompany them.5
The announcement was not wholly accurate and seems to have been a trifle premature. In the previous December, after further discussions between the First Lord and members of the Royal Society, a bill had been passed offering £20,000 for the discovery of a northern route between the Pacific and the Atlantic, with an additional prize of £5000 for the first ship to sail within a degree of the North Pole. The prospect of sharing in this reward doubtless had some part — if only a minor part — in Cook’s actions. He had already been drawn into negotiations for the purchase of a ship to accompany the Resolution, but it was not until 10 February that he offered his services as leader, prudently requesting that on his return he should be restored to his post in Greenwich Hospital or receive some ‘other mark of the Royal Favour’. The same day he wrote to his French correspondent Latouche-Tréville to tell him the news. Arrangements, he said, had just been completed for the dispatch of two ships to the Pacific towards the end of April with himself in command. He passed over the expedition’s larger aims, merely stating that its first object would be ‘de reconduire Omaï dans son isle’.6
THE PROSPECT OF OMAI’S EARLY DEPARTURE brought to the surface issues which had long been impending. From time to time in the past eighteen months critical observers had complained of the manner in which the visitor from the South Seas had been decked out like a ‘macaroni’, paraded as a ‘shew’ by his worldly patrons, and denied the tuition he himself craved for. Only recently Sir John Cullum, who had already censured Banks on this score, gave a further hint of his disapproval while discussing with Michael Tyson his latest excursion to London. He had spent an evening at Enfield, he told his friend, and at the house of Captain Blake seen a unique volume of Chinese botanical drawings ‘executed by Artists of the Country, under the Inspection of the Captain’s Son’. In addition he had met Blake’s Chinese pupil who was then on the eve of leaving England. Unfortunately he failed to give the exotic visitor’s name but did remark that the captain’s daughters had ‘taken great Pains with him in teaching him to read, and to behave himself properly.’ He had, Cullum commented, ‘infinitely the Advantage of Omai, by having been in better Hands ….’7
Other high-minded persons held similar opinions and marshalled their forces to remedy the shortcomings of Lord Sandwich and Mr. Banks. On 14 January (a Sunday) the pious Sir Harry Trelawny expressed his feelings in a letter to the Revd. Mr. Broughton of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge:
My present business justifies me I trust in writing on this sacred day, — it is to hint to you what has I doubt not, appeared to you as it does to me a strange and diabolical neglect — the non baptism & non instruction of the Indian omiah — he is brought here where the full light of the glorious Gospel shines unclouded; — and what has he learned. why, to make refinements on sin in his own country — …. Does it fall within the province of our Society to take some step in this basely neglected business? Zeal of souls with God’s blessing might I should think suggest to us some method whereby to get him instructed, & ordained if found right.
Perhaps, Trelawny suggested, they should approach Lord Dartmouth; he was now in power and a man ‘rooted & grounded in the love of Christ’. Or might it not be worth while, he asked, to lay these considerations before a meeting of the Society?8
Either as a result of this move or independently, Omai’s plight soon afterwards became the concern of a group of London philanthropists whose most active member was Granville Sharp. This dedicated man had already taken up the cause of African slaves and now through his brother William, a surgeon practising in the City, sought the help of Lord Sandwich’s secretary, Mr. Joah Bates, in meeting the benighted voyager from the South Seas. ‘Pray tell your brother Granville’, wrote Bates, ‘that I will not forget his commission about Omai. If it should be practicable to bring about an interview between them it will give me great pleasure, as well as himself.’ In a diffident reply Granville sent thanks to Mr. Bates but didn’t think he was capable of expressing himself properly in discourse with the islander, for he had ‘no talent at talking’. He meant to consult the Bishop of Llandaff, he said, about some proper person to instruct the young man in the first principles of the Christian religion. Writing on 17 February, Dr. Jekyll, another member of the circle, praised Granville for the benevolent interest he was taking in Omai. ‘But’, he hinted darkly, ‘if the representations made of him to me are just, I fear that you will have more difficulties than that of language to encounter.’ At the same time he thought the present peace and welfare of a fellow creature (and perhaps of hundreds through him) was an object of sufficient importance to support a Christian in the most arduous undertaking. ‘I shall be happy in attending you on Monday morning,’ he concluded, ‘and wish it may be in my power to contribute to the charitable work.’9
From his own notes it is clear that, with or without the Bishop of Llandaff’s advice and largely on his own account, Sharp had already committed himself to the undertaking so inauspiciously begun two years before in Queen Charlotte Sound. On 12 February he called on Mr. Bates at the Admiralty and received the First Lord’s permission to proceed with the scheme. The following day he visited Mr. Banks and Omai ‘by appointment’ and on the 14th seems to have begun serious teaching at his brother’s house in the Old Jewry. From then on for about a month he gave regular instruction, sometimes with Dr. Jekyll’s assistance. A typical entry in his March notes reads: ‘8th. Omai came for three hours; and 9th, for two hours with Dr. Jekyll.’ On the 11th and the 13th he again came for two hours, but there is no further entry until the 26th when ‘Omai called, but had no time for a lesson.’ On both 28 March and 4 April he was with Sharp ‘for a very short time’ and on the 6th, the final entry: ‘Omai was so taken up with engagements that I could have no more opportunity of giving him lessons, which were but fifteen in all.’ However, Sharp consoled himself, he had taught his pupil the use of English letters and made him sound ‘every combination of vowels and consonants that letters are capable of: and he afterwards wrote a letter to Dr. Solander ….’10
39 Miss Martha Ray, after Nathaniel Dance
Apart from Sharp’s own modest claim, there is no evidence of the success or failure of his didactic efforts. Neither the letter to Solander nor any other example of Omai’s penmanship seems to have survived. That his mentor possessed even less talent for teaching than he did for talking is strongly suggested by An English Alphabet, for the use of Foreigners: wherein the Pronunciation of the Vowels, or Voice-Letters, is explained in Twelve short general Rules, With their several Exceptions, As Abridged (For the Instruction of Omai) From a larger Work. This pamphlet by Sharp, published a decade later, is hardly a model of lucid exposition. What, for example, did Omai make of Rule 2 ? It ran:
The vowels are pronounced short in all syllables ending with a consonant, (except in the particular cases hereafter noted,) and the three first vowels have the foreign articulation, without any other material difference except that of being pronounced short.
Appended texts — the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments — would also have created formidable problems for the Polynesian eye and mind, even though they were ‘divided into syllables, (according to the rule for spelling recommended by the learned Bishop Lowth,) with references placed to those syllables which are exceptions to the several rules laid down in this book respecting the pronunciation of vowels and diphthongs.’11
Sharp’s concern, as his biographer emphasizes, was not merely with language nor with one solitary proselyte. Through Omai he hoped to diffuse ‘Christian light over a new race of men’; and in attaining that object the teaching of English was only a preliminary step. How far he succeeded in these larger aims is also uncertain. There is nothing to suggest that his pupil was ever baptized, let alone ordained. To judge from Sharp’s own testimony, however, he did contrive to impart to the young pagan (or more accurately to elicit from him) some understanding of moral principles. One day, he relates, when they were sitting at table after dinner, he thought it a good opportunity to explain the Ten Commandments. He proceeded with tolerable success through the first six, pausing occasionally to define a term, but when they reached the seventh Omai asked: ‘“Adultery! what that? what that?”’ Sharp described the ensuing debate in an address he prepared long afterwards for the Maroons of Sierra Leone (a people regrettably addicted to the practice of polygamy):
‘Not to commit adultery,’ I said, ‘is that, if a man has got one wife, he must not take another wife, or any other woman.’ — ‘Oh!’ says he, ‘two wives — very good; three wives — very, very good.’ — ‘No, Mr. Omai,’ I said, ‘not so; that would be contrary to the first principle of the law of nature.’ — ‘First principle of the law of nature,’ said he; ‘what that? what that?’ — ‘The first principle of the law of nature,’ I said, ‘is, that no man must do to another person any thing that he would not like to be done to himself. And, for example, Mr. Omai,’ said I, ‘suppose you have got a wife that you love very much; you would not like that another man should come to love your wife.’ This raised his indignation: he put on a furious countenance, and a threatening posture, signifying that he would kill any man that should meddle with his wife. ‘Well, Mr. Omai,’ said I, ‘suppose, then, that your wife loves you very much; she would not like that you should love another woman: for the women have the same passions, and feelings, and love towards the men, that we have towards the women ….’12
At the end of this speech Omai lapsed into reflective silence, but he soon gave ample proof that he understood Sharp’s meaning and, more than that, the nature of the relations between the First Lord and Miss Ray (or Miss Wray, as she was known to many of her contemporaries). Taking one pen from an ink-stand, he laid it on the table with the explanation:
‘There lies Lord S— — —’ (a Nobleman with whom he was well acquainted, and in whose family he had spent some time); and then he took another pen, and laid it close by the side of the former pen, saying, ‘and there lies Miss W— — —’ (who was an accomplished young woman in many respects, but, unhappily for herself, she lived in a state of adultery with that nobleman); and he then took a third pen, and placing it on the table at a considerable distance from the other two pens, as far as his right arm could extend, and at the same time leaning his head upon his left hand, supported by his elbow on the table, in a pensive posture, he said, ‘and there lie Lady S— — —, and cry!’
Sharp was convinced that his pupil thoroughly understood ‘the gross injury done to the married lady by her husband in taking another woman to his bed.’ ‘There was no need’, he ended, ‘to explain the rights of women any farther to Mr. Omai on that occasion.’13
IT IS AGAIN DOUBTFUL whether Omai profited from Granville Sharp’s moral teaching; the meagre records that survive of his final weeks in England tend to suggest otherwise. If Fanny Burney’s testimony is accepted, he seems to have continued his wayward course through the world of fashion. Indeed, the last glimpse she provides of Jem’s shipboard friend depicts him — and also herself — in a most unflattering light. Writing to Mr. Crisp early in April (when Omai was forced to give up his lessons through the press of ‘engagements’), she described a visit to the Park one Sunday morning and her surprise at the ‘undressed & slaternly’ appearance of the ‘Young & handsome’ Duchess of Devonshire. Two of her curls came quite unpinned, falling lank on her shoulder, one shoe was down at heel, the trimming of her jacket and coat was in some places unsewn, her cap was awry, and her cloak, which was rusty and powdered, was flung half on and half off. ‘Had she not had a servant in a Superb Livery behind her,’ Fanny commented, ‘she would certainly have been affronted.’ The duchess certainly was affronted, as Fanny herself disclosed; she concluded her account: ‘Omai, who was in the Park, called here this Morning, & says that he went to her Grace, & asked her why she let her Hair go in that manner? Ha, Ha, Ha, — don’t you Laugh at her having a Lesson of Attention from an Otaheitan?’14
Perhaps in response to a recent change in fashionable opinion, Fanny had evidently revised her former estimate of Omai. But even as she wrote he was enhancing his reputation for social poise and good manners in one of London’s most exalted literary circles. It was about this time, in late March or early April, that he seems to have been taken up by the blue-stocking and ardent lion-hunter, Mrs. Thrale, who introduced him to the other celebrities she had gathered round her indulgent husband and herself at Streatham Park in Surrey. The principal and most formidable of her lions, Dr. Johnson, was, according to Boswell, struck by the elegance of Omai’s behaviour and accounted for it thus: ‘Sir, he had passed his time, while in England, only in the best company; so that all that he had acquired of our manners was genteel.’ As proof of his statement, Johnson cited his experience with another member of Mrs. Thrale’s entourage, the former Captain Phipps, to whom Omai required no introduction: ‘… Sir, Lord Mulgrave and he dined one day at Streatham; they sat with their backs to the light fronting me, so that I could not see distinctly; and there was so little of the savage in Omai, that I was afraid to speak to either, lest I should mistake one for the other.’15
The point of the comparison is somewhat blunted not only by the notorious fact of Johnson’s short-sightedness but by Mrs. Thrale’s recorded opinion that Mulgrave was ‘Rough as a boatswain, and fond of coarse merriment approaching to ill manners’. There are, in addition, some grounds for supposing that in the Streatham circle the South Sea Islander’s social graces, real or imagined, formed a convenient stick with which to beat one’s adversaries. Of Johnson’s old friend, who held the post of Italian master to her eldest daughter, Mrs. Thrale remarked, ‘When Omai played at chess and at backgammon with Baretti, everybody admired at the savage’s good breeding and at the European’s impatient spirit.’ Or, as another version has it, ‘You would [have] thought Omai the Christian, and Baretti the Savage.’16
Boswell, one of Rousseau’s most fervent British disciples, apparently made no attempt to inspect this specimen of natural man (another fact suggesting a recent slump in Omai’s reputation). But the assiduous hero-worshipper sought out Captain Cook several times in the spring of 1776. They first met on 3 April, soon after Cook’s election to a fellowship of the Royal Society, when the ‘celebrated circumnavigator’ and his wife were among the guests at a dinner given by Sir John Pringle. The host had already described the captain as ‘a plain, sensible man with an uncommon attention to veracity’ and to illustrate the last quality mentioned an incident concerning Lord Monboddo. The judge had been very pleased to hear that Cook claimed to have seen a nation of men like monkeys, but when Sir John mentioned this to Cook himself he denied having spoken in such terms: ‘“No,” said he, “I did not say they were like monkeys. I said their faces put me in mind of monkeys.”’ Boswell thought the distinction ‘very fine but sufficiently perceptible’ and at this function found the captain not only ‘very obliging and communicative’ but modest — he ‘seemed to have no desire to make people stare’. In their conversation (apparently confined to the South Seas) Cook, ‘being a man of good steady moral principles … did not try to make theories out of what he had seen to confound virtue and vice.’ Hawkesworth, he complained, had drawn ‘a general conclusion from a particular fact, and would take as a fact what they had only heard.’ A ‘disregard of chastity in unmarried women’, he instanced, ‘was by no means general at Otaheite’. As for the assertion that he and Mr. Banks had revised all the book, it was quite untrue — Hawkesworth, asserted Cook, would make no alteration (or such was Boswell’s impression).17
At one point the discussion turned to Omai who, according to Cook, begged to have two things to carry back, ‘port wine, which he loved the best of any liquor, and gunpowder’. He would not let him have ‘the power of fire-arms’, Cook declared, because he supposed the young islander wished to have them ‘from some ambitious design’. ‘He said’, Boswell continued, ‘that for some time after Omai’s return home he would be a man of great consequence, as having so many wonders to tell.’ Yet Omai ‘would not foresee that when he had told all he had to tell, he would sink into his former state, and then, the Captain supposed, he would wish to go to England again’; however, Boswell reported, ‘the Captain would take care to leave the coast before Omai had time to be dissatisfied at home.’ ‘It was curious’, the diarist finally reflected, ‘to see Cook, a grave steady man, and his wife, a decent plump Englishwoman, and think that he was preparing to sail round the world.’18
Inspired by this meeting, Boswell now pictured himself in the role of circumnavigator and hastened to discuss the idea with Dr. Johnson. Arriving at Bolt Court the next morning, he found the sage, gloved and dusty, putting his books in order, ‘quite in the character which Dr. Boswell drew of him: “A robust genius! born to grapple with whole libraries!”’ The ensuing interchange, as recorded in Boswell’s journal, went thus:
I gave him an account of Captain Cook, and told him I felt, while I was with the Captain, an inclination to make the voyage. ‘Why, so one does,’ said the Doctor, ‘till one considers how very little one learns.’ I said I was certain a great part of what we are told by the travellers to the South Sea Islands must be conjecture, because they cannot know language enough to understand so much as they tell. The Doctor was of that opinion. ‘But,’ said I, ‘one is carried away with the thing in general, a voyage round the world.’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘but one is to guard against taking a thing in general.’19
Boswell’s ardour was not entirely quenched by this mild rebuke, and a fortnight later he returned to the exciting topic of global travel. On that day, 18 April, while dining at the Mitre with Sir John Pringle, Dr. Solander, Mr. Banks, and other notables of the Royal Society, he contrived to place himself next to its latest luminary. Cook discussed the problems of interpreting an unknown tongue and, confirming Boswell’s own belief,
III Head of Omai by Sir Joshua Reynolds, c. 1775
candidly confessed … that he and his companions who visited the South Sea Islands could not be certain of any information they got, or supposed they got, except as to objects falling under the observation of the senses; their knowledge of the language was so imperfect they required the aid of their senses, and anything which they learnt about religion, government, or traditions might be quite erroneous.
As an example of direct sensory experience, he gave Boswell ‘a distinct account of a New Zealander eating human flesh in his presence and in that of many more aboard’ so that ‘the fact of cannibals’ was ‘now certainly known.’ They next discussed ‘having some men of inquiry left for three years at each of the islands of Otaheite, New Zealand, and Nova Caledonia, so as to learn the language and … bring home a full account of all that can be known of people in a state so different from ours.’ The scheme made a strong personal appeal to the mercurial but not wholly disinterested Boswell. ‘I felt’, he wrote, ‘a stirring in my mind to go upon such an undertaking, if encouraged by Government by having a handsome pension for life.’20
The last meeting took place at Cook’s home in the Mile End Road where they had tea in the garden and a blackbird sang — a ‘quite pleasant’ experience that apparently did nothing to quell Boswell’s enthusiasm for his latest project. He was given no encouragement, however, when towards the end of April he followed Johnson and the Thrales to Bath and again aired his aspirations. As he relates the incident in the Life, ‘a gentleman’ (obviously Boswell himself)
expressed a wish to go and live three years at Otaheité, or New-Zealand, in order to obtain a full acquaintance with people, so totally different from all that we have ever known, and be satisfied what pure nature can do for man. JOHNSON. ‘What could you learn, Sir? What can savages tell, but what they themselves have seen? Of the past, or the invisible, they can tell nothing. The inhabitants of Otaheite and New-Zealand are not in a state of pure nature; for it is plain they broke off from some other people. Had they grown out of the ground, you might have judged of a state of pure nature ….’21
Nothing more was heard of Boswell’s plan for self-exile in Tahiti or New Zealand (preferably the former, one would imagine). Soon, however, another member of the Streatham circle, scarcely less illustrious than Dr. Johnson, was to present to the public his own eloquent comment on the theme of savage man. Since he last exhibited at the Royal Academy in the spring of 1775, Sir Joshua Reynolds had been pursuing his industrious, prolific career. He had painted numerous portraits of aristocrats and other personages of the fashionable world — among them ‘Richard, Earl Temple’, ‘Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’, ‘David Garrick’, and perhaps ‘Henry Thrale’; he had painted more of those renderings of childhood in which he sometimes anticipated the mood of his romantic successors — the ‘Infant Samuel’, ‘Master Crewe’; and he had painted contrasting studies of two migrants from distant parts of the earth. To this period probably belongs the modest and charming likeness of an oriental youth known as ‘Wang-y-tong’ (whose model, it seems, was none other than Captain Blake’s nameless pupil mentioned in Cullum’s letter to his friend Tyson). And to the years 1775 or 1776 can be assigned with greater certainty the elaborate full-length ‘Omai’.22
Owing to the loss of Reynolds’s engagement books for the years 1774 to 1776, ‘Omai’ cannot be dated with absolute precision. All things considered, the sittings were most likely arranged during the obscure weeks late in 1775 after the excursion to Yorkshire. Probably uncommissioned (for it was still in the studio four years later), the work was carried out with exceptional care. Contrary to his usual practice, Reynolds did not paint directly on the canvas but first made two preliminary studies of the subject’s head. One, a pencil drawing, is a masterly rendering of the young man’s features — the long, straight, black hair, the broad forehead, the alert dark eyes, the flat, fleshy nose, the full lips, the slightly receding jaw. This is not the Europeanized native of a Cipriani or a Bartolozzi but recognizably the representative of a new race, a Polynesian. Equally striking in its own way is a sketch in oils which long afterwards Hoppner thought ‘as fine as Titian’.23 It is certainly a fine work of art but as a likeness it falls far short of the drawing. Though pose and features are similar, the sharp clarity of the pencil study has gone and Omai is shown as a brooding, enigmatic presence, handsome half-brother to Caliban.
Poetic transformation went a stage farther in the finished painting which Reynolds showed at the Royal Academy’s exhibition in Pall Mall early in May. Oddly enough in the light of Fanny Burney’s remarks, ‘Omai’ hung with another work of the same large dimensions, ‘Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’.24 No longer in slatternly disarray, her grace is seen in park-like surroundings, her abundant draperies and lofty coiffure combining with the sylvan properties of the picture to reduce her glazed, doll-like face to insignificance. The painting is not so much an example of portraiture as a tribute from the high priest of eighteenth-century art to one of the avatars of rank and fashion. ‘Omai’ is equally remote from the literal truth of the model’s appearance as it was rendered by Nathaniel Dance or Reynolds himself in his preliminary drawing. Robed and turbanned, he is flanked on his right by a tropical palm while to the left a romantic landscape recedes into the distance. In this exotic setting he stands like an African princeling, one tattooed hand outstretched as if in declamation, his handsome, now somewhat negroid features composed in an expression of benign authority. The painting depicts not only an idealized Omai but one of the several conceptions he embodied in the eyes of European observers — the nobility and dignity of natural man. At some time the portrait was copied by one of Reynolds’s assistants, James Northcote, and in 1777 engraved by a visiting German, Johann Jacobé (or John Jacobi). It was through the latter version that the most exalted image of Britain’s first Polynesian visitor became familiar to the eighteenth-century public.25
40 Head of Omai by Sir Joshua Reynolds, c. 1775
41 Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire by Reynolds
APRIL HAD COME AND GONE, the month of May was slipping by, but there was still no sign of the expedition’s early departure. Apparently Cook had underestimated the time needed to organize the new venture and, furthermore, had failed to anticipate the problems that would arise when he became chronicler — or co-chronicler — of the previous voyage. On this occasion Sandwich and his advisers, firmly ruling out the possibility of another Hawkesworth, decided in favour of two authors with first-hand experience of the events recorded, John Reinhold Forster and Cook himself. Their association on the Resolution had not been happy, but no open breach had occurred and soon after their return they agreed on a loosely defined scheme of collaboration. By September, as the letter from William Watson to Edward Wortley Montagu indicates, the fact was common knowledge. For some months, under the First Lord’s general direction, both men worked independently on their manuscripts, Cook with editorial assistance from the Revd. John Douglas, Canon of Windsor. By April it was apparent that the narratives overlapped, and on the 13th Sandwich arranged a conference with the authors to determine their respective limits. An understanding was then reached that the account of the voyage would be issued in two volumes — the first Cook’s revised journal, the second a treatise, part scientific, part philosophical, on Forster’s discoveries in natural history and his observations of native peoples. The authors would share both the costs and the profits of publication and the Admiralty would pay for the engraving of plates.26
Since February Cook’s literary labours had been combined with his exacting duties as leader of the expedition. Even before finally committing himself, he had been called on to advise on the purchase of an escort vessel, the Diligence, which was renamed the Discovery. A month later, on taking command of the Resolution, he opened a vast correspondence with Admiralty officials on the equipment and provisioning of the two ships. With a strict regard for the courtesies and the formalities, he asked whether it might not please the Lords Commissioners to order the Commissioners of the Sick and Hurt to supply His Majesty’s sloops with portable soup. It was well known, he observed in his next communication, that the crews of His Majesty’s sloops during the late voyage received great benefit from ‘Sour Krout and Malt’. Might it now please the Lords Commissioners to order the Victualling Board to supply those items to the Resolution and the Discovery? Early in March he took the liberty of enumerating articles which might be ordered if they met with their Lordships’ approbation; they would be exchanged with the natives for refreshments or ‘distributed to them in presents towards obtaining their friendship’. There followed a lengthy list of axes, hatchets, chisels, beads, fish-hooks, etc. with such additional commodities as ‘Old Shirts, not patched’, ‘Red Baize’, ‘Old Cloathes’, and ‘Fine old Sheets’. Polite requests were sent for ‘Inspissated Juice of Wort’ and ‘Corn’d Powder’, requisitions went out for worsted caps and kersey jackets and linsey drawers, for an azimuth compass and a tent observatory, for port wine, muscovado sugar, and a thousand things more.27
The manning of the two ships was not entirely Cook’s responsibility, but there is little doubt that his views on the choice of officers and men were decisive. Tried veterans, it is noticeable, filled the senior posts. Charles Clerke, who according to Solander and the newspapers was first chosen to carry Omai home, had sailed with the two previous expeditions and was now in charge of the Discovery and second in command. His first lieutenant was James Burney, while Cook’s was Banks’s companion in Iceland, the widely travelled John Gore, setting out on his fourth voyage of circumnavigation. Other veterans held various appointments on both ships: the Resolution’s surgeon was the talented William Anderson, the quartermaster Patrick Whelan, the master’s mate William Harvey; George Vancouver, still classed as midshipman, travelled on the Discovery with such old Pacific hands as William Peckover, gunner, and Peter Reynolds, carpenter’s mate. All had already served on the Resolution or the Endeavour or both. Among newcomers notable for one reason or another were Second Lieutenant King of the Resolution, its master William Bligh, one of its midshipmen, John Watts, Anderson’s mate David Samwell, and Second Lieutenant John Rickman of the Discovery.28
In the matter of supernumeraries Cook’s opinion again seems to have been decisive. Perhaps it was he who inspired the emphatic conclusion to the newspaper report announcing his appointment: that on the coming voyage there were to be ‘no Botanists, Designers, &c.’. Some support is given to this conjecture in a conversation recorded by the elder Forster. On being posted to the Resolution, he wrote, Mr. King
‘visited the Captain, and told him he considered himself fortunate to be making this important voyage with so great a navigator, but at the same time he expressed his regret that there were no scientists accompanying the expedition, as had been the case with the former expeditions. Cook, whose head had been turned by Lord Sandwich, said, “Curse the scientists, and all science into the bargain.” This discourteous reply so shocked Mr. King that he repeated it to me the next day, and his respect for the man under whose command he was to sail was considerably diminished until I took the opportunity of setting things right by describing Cook’s character and pointing out that it was in reality not so bad as it appeared, but that he was a cross-grained fellow who sometimes showed a mean disposition and was carried away by a hasty temper ….’29
Forster’s assertions, coloured as they were by his manifold grievances, must be treated with reserve. But Cook’s words at least have the ring of truth, and the fact remains that on this voyage, apart from the veteran Mr. Bayly who was astronomer on the Discovery, there were no professional men of science. Rather than risk another quarrelsome Forster or temperamental Banks, the commander evidently decided to draw on Anderson’s talents in natural history and, for astronomical expertise on the Resolution, to rely on the scholarly King and himself. As for ‘Designers’, nothing was done until the last possible moment when, fortunately for posterity, enlightened Admiralty officials engaged ‘Mr John Webber Draughtsman and Landskip Painter’ and dispatched him to the Resolution.30
The two ingenious gentlemen, it is reasonable to assume, had long since realized they would not be asked to accompany Cook and witness Omai’s restoration to his native sphere. Dr. Lind must also have learned for a second time not to put his trust in the impetuous proposals of his English colleagues. If the little group of friends exchanged condolences or recriminations, the letters have not survived; but there is clear testimony that Solander, for one, continued to reflect on Tahiti and its bounteous resources. Writing to John Ellis on 4 May, he asserted: ‘The Bread Fruit of the South Sea islands within the tropics, which was by us during several months daily eaten as a substitute for bread, was universally esteemed as palatable and as nourishing as bread itself.’ It was undoubtedly of the greatest consequence, he urged, to bring so valuable a fruit to other countries where the climate favoured its cultivation.31 Banks, too, while resigning himself to the bleak conclusion that he would not again botanize through the Pacific in person, contrived to salvage something from the wreck of half-formulated plans and hopes. He arranged for one of the Kew gardeners, David Nelson, to sail on the Discovery. Listed in the muster-roll as Mr. Bayly’s servant, he was actually sent out to gather plants for his royal master and Mr. Banks.32
If less lavishly provided with men of learning than its predecessors, this expedition was better equipped to civilize the Pacific and demonstrate British power and goodwill. There was no question, as earlier rumoured, of establishing a settlement in New Zealand or New Caledonia, but everything possible was done to equip Cook and his men for their patriotic mission. The King himself supplied animals for the cause — a bull, two cows with their calves, a number of sheep — and one noble benefactor, Lord Bessborough, contributed a peacock and hen.33 Sundry drafts and jottings among his papers also indicate that Banks was called in to advise on the choice of gifts: ‘if his majesty should be graciously pleased to send any in his own name they must’, he recommended, ‘be of the finest materials such as cannot be Equald by those of the officers or seamen’; they should, moreover, be distributed ‘among those Cheifs only who have shewn themselves best deserving of such honours’. A list of articles for worthy recipients is more varied and imaginative than Cook’s. It includes such staple items as adzes and iron tools but also ‘Lacd Hats & Feathers’, ‘Loose Gowns of Fine materials’, ‘Trousers of fine Linnen’, ‘Broad swords’, ‘Bowls of cut glass’, ‘Cases of Knives & Forks’, ‘Multiplying glasses’, ‘chess boards’, ‘spy glasses large’. A corresponding list ‘For the Ladies’ similarly emphasized the ornamental rather than the useful: ‘Paste pinns’, ‘Earings of cut paste’, ‘Colourd gauses’, ‘perfum’d waters & oils’, ‘Fauns’, ‘Hand skreens’, ‘Broad ribbons of various colours’, ‘Handkercheifs with Great Britain printed on them’, then, more prosaically, ‘Needles & thread Housewifes Pins bodkins’ and ‘Soap’. A scribbled note mentioned ‘the Kings picture’, ‘the Queens do’, ‘Silver watches’, and finally came an eloquent addendum, ‘Medecines for the Venereal disease’.34
Banks singled out two inhabitants of the South Seas for special consideration. A brief memorandum headed ‘Things intended to be sent to Odidde, an Indian who embarked on board the Resolution in order to have come home with Captain Cook, but left him on his second visit to the Island Otaheite’ specified only ‘2 suits of cloaths with suitables’ and ‘a sword’. Articles to the value of nearly £50 were ultimately assigned to Cook’s favourite, but in number and cost they were insignificant compared with the gifts lavished on Omai. At the behest of Sandwich a suit of armour had already been fashioned for him by artificers in the Tower. Now Banks ensured that on his return the young man would not entirely lack the luxuries and the conveniences of the life to which he had been introduced two years before. He was to be supplied with ‘4 Suits of cloaths of light materials, with a proper assortment of suitables’, ‘A few shoes & stockings extra’, ‘An assortment of linens’, ‘2 suits of Women’s cloaths compleat’ (the last perhaps for presentation to his sisters). As a means of introducing European crafts and domestic habits to his fellow islanders he would be equipped with ‘Assortment of Iron’, ‘2 Whip saws’, ‘Planes’, ‘Files’, ‘A case of knives & forks’, ‘12 pewter plates’, ‘Sauce pans & kettles for boiling’, ‘Mugs, glasses, & spoons’, ‘Flints & steels for striking fire’, ‘a table to be made on board’, ‘a Chair Ditto’, ‘a Field bed’, ‘a Chest of drawers’, ‘a Wheelbarrow to be made on board’. With ‘2 Drums’ he would, in a modest way, be able to extend the range of Polynesian music; an ‘Assortment of beads’ would supply both personal ornaments and local currency; and with the aid of ‘Toy models of horses, coaches, waggons, sedan chairs &c’ he would, as Fanny Burney’s friend Mrs. Strange had suggested, be more likely to convince sceptical islanders that these wonders really did exist. An afterthought, inserted beside the main list, recommended the highest honours: though not of chiefly rank, Omai would, like his betters, receive ‘Kings picture’, ‘Queens do-’, ‘Multiplying glasses’, ‘glass bowls’, ‘Hand skreens’.35
Thus Banks laboured to ensure Omai’s future welfare and before the final parting did something to ensure that their association would be suitably commemorated. It was probably he who commissioned William Parry, a former pupil of Reynolds lately returned from Italy, to paint a large conversation piece set in the study of his country home — or such is the suggestion of a wooded vista seen through an open window at the right of the picture. Beneath it is the plump, benign Solander seated, pen in hand, at a writing-table. In the centre, dominating the composition, stands the masterful Banks who points with didactic or proprietary gesture towards the full-length figure of Omai on his right. This is the Omai of Dance rather than Reynolds, a native clad in stiff white robes, his plain Polynesian features marked by an expression of resolution mingled with sadness. Whether the painting represents the young man’s mood towards the end of his stay cannot be ascertained, for its exact date is uncertain and neither Banks nor Solander left any record of their protégé at this period.36 Indeed, of the whole Sandwich coterie only Joseph Cradock, writing half a century later, provides a glimpse of Omai on the eve of embarkation. At his home in Leicestershire, Cradock relates, he heard that the visitor was ‘not at all concerned at the thoughts of leaving any of us’ and consequently he himself felt ‘rather vexed that we should have wasted so much anxiety about him’. But on returning to London, he ‘met Omai on the raised pavement in Parliament-street, leading to the Admiralty,’ and was strongly convinced to the contrary. ‘He was miserable,’ wrote the tender-hearted impresario, ‘and I was never much more affected.’37
Whatever his feelings, Omai must again follow his destiny as preparations for departure went inexorably forward. His Majesty’s ships Resolution and Discovery were completely fitted out for sea at Deptford, announced the newspapers on 28 May, and waited for nothing but sailing orders before they proceeded on their voyage to the South Seas for further discoveries. ‘Yesterday’, ran a brief paragraph on 11 June, ‘Omiah, the Otaheitean, took his leave of his Majesty, and this day set out for Portsmouth, where he is to embark on board Capt. Cook’s ship, in order to return home.’ On the 13th, it was further reported, the captain had been similarly honoured by the King and in a few days would sail in company with the Discovery, Captain Clerke, now at Gravesend.38 Finally, on the 18th, members of the public — in particular Granville Sharp and his friends — were doubtless gratified to read:
Omiah, who is now on board the Resolution, in order to return to Otaheite, has made such good use of his time while in England, that he was able to write his sentiments in our language: the following is a copy of the card he sent to several of his friends, which we give upon the best authority.
‘Omiah to take leave of good friend. He never forget England. He go on ‘Sunday. God bless King George. He tell his people how kind English to him.’39
Some of these statements (though not certainly the last) conveyed speculation and intention rather than accomplished fact. Omai did not board the Resolution until later in the month and then he was in Cook’s company, bound not for Portsmouth but Plymouth. Various complications had held up both captains and delayed their departure. The quixotic Clerke, who had made himself responsible for his brother’s debts, was detained in the King’s Bench prison. So, when the Discovery sailed from Long Reach on 16 June, Lieutenant Burney was temporarily in command.40 Cook for his part was still putting the finishing touches to his account of the previous voyage and received permission to stay on till arrangements for its publication were settled. Not surprisingly, the scheme of joint authorship had broken down, mainly through Forster’s refusal to permit alterations to his work. Troubled by no such scruples, Cook continued in amicable consultation with Canon Douglas. Writing on the 14th, he told his editor that the night before he had used all arguments to persuade Dr. Forster to submit, ‘but to no manner of purpose’. He went on to discuss the plates for his book and enclosed further copy, ‘a paper concerning Omai’ prepared by ‘My Lord Sandwich’ and ‘tack’d in its proper place’ in the manuscript. The introduction, he promised, would go ‘by the Stage’ tomorrow. On the 23rd he sent Douglas his last message: it was now settled that he was to publish without Mr. Forster; the next morning he would set out to join his ship at the Nore whence it would make for Plymouth.41
THE ‘PAPER CONCERNING OMAI’ was the basis for one of several valedictory compositions that appeared after the visitor’s departure. When published a year later in A Voyage towards the South Pole, it combined the views of both Cook and Sandwich whose drafts had doubtless been reconciled and edited by Douglas. For these reasons it is not easy to identify the separate contributions. Cook, the nominal author, was probably responsible for introductory remarks where he made handsome amends for his earlier uncomplimentary description of Omai as ‘dark, ugly and a downright blackguard’. Heavily deleting those words, he wrote more mildly in his account of the Resolution and the Adventure at Huahine:
Before we quitted this island, Captain Furneaux agreed to receive on board his ship a young man named Omai, a native of Ulietea, where he had some property, of which he had been dispossessed by the people of Bolabola. I at first rather wondered that Captain Furneaux would encumber himself with this man, who, in my opinion, was not a proper sample of the inhabitants of these happy islands, not having any advantage of birth, or acquired rank; nor being eminent in shape, figure, or complexion. For their people of the first rank are much fairer, and usually better behaved, and more intelligent than the middling class of people, among whom Omai is to be ranked.
Since his own arrival in England, Cook generously acknowledged, he had become convinced of his error; for, except in the matter of complexion (and Omai’s was undoubtedly of a deeper hue than that of ‘the Earees or gentry’ who lived a more luxurious life and were less exposed to the sun), he much doubted whether any other native would have given more general satisfaction by his behaviour.42
There followed a catalogue of the exemplary native’s virtues: his ‘very good understanding’; his ‘quick parts’; his ‘honest principles’; the ‘natural good behaviour, which rendered him acceptable to the best company’; and ‘a proper degree of pride, which taught him to avoid the society of persons of inferior rank’. With his limited knowledge of Omai at this period, Cook could hardly have committed himself to such specific and undiluted praise. But, after observing his guest at close quarters on the Augusta and at Hinchingbrooke, Sandwich was well qualified to do so; and in a further tribute there seem to be faint echoes of the solicitous letter he wrote to Banks in December 1774:
He has passions of the same kind as other young men, but has judgment enough not to indulge them in an improper excess. I do not imagine that he has any dislike to liquor … but fortunately for him, he perceived that drinking was very little in use but among inferior people, and as he was very watchful into the manners and conduct of the persons of rank who honoured him with their protection, he was sober and modest, and I never heard that, during the whole time of his stay in England, which was two years, he ever once was disguised with wine, or ever showed an inclination to go beyond the strictest rules of moderation.43
In a final paragraph, where it is even more difficult to disentangle the views and compliments of His Majesty’s loyal subjects, the events of Omai’s stay were summarized. Soon after his arrival, in this version, the Earl of Sandwich introduced him to the King at Kew ‘when he met with a most gracious reception, and imbibed the strongest impression of duty and gratitude to that great and amiable prince’ — an impression, it was confidently predicted, he would ‘preserve to the latest moment of his life’. During his stay, the account continued, ‘he was caressed by many of the principal nobility, and did nothing to forfeit the esteem of any one of them; but his principal patrons were the Earl of Sandwich, Mr. Banks, and Dr. Solander’. While Omai lived in the midst of amusements in England, it was noted, his return was always in his thoughts and, though not impatient to go, he expressed satisfaction as the time approached. ‘He embarked with me in the Resolution,’ anticipated the author, ‘… loaded with presents from his several friends, and full of gratitude for the kind reception and treatment he had experienced among us.’44
These proceedings were viewed in a rather different light by two satirists who, a little belatedly, had been sharpening their quills. Some weeks after the Resolution sailed, G. Kearsly of Fleet Street published the anonymous Omiah’s Farewell; inscribed to the Ladies of London. A further but not final addition to the Oberea sequence, it marked another stage in the reaction against earlier journalistic excesses and fashionable adulation. A long, rambling, often incoherent preface opened: ‘When we consider the great civilities which have been shown to OMIAH, the native of Otaheitée, it is no longer a surprize that he should leave such a situation with regret, as the great personages of this kingdom were assiduous to do him favours.’ Like the Duenna, this ‘exotic’ had become ‘a very favourite’ and people contended who could see him most, not for his intrinsic merits but ‘to surpass each other in an extravagant absurdity’. Besides correcting popular misconceptions, the writer supplied details of Omiah’s origins, appearance, and attainments. He was ‘an Indian of a low descent, and not of the order of priesthood, as hath been erroneously represented.’ His visit to Europe was not at first approved by ‘OBEREA, his Queen’, but her favourite voyagers overruled her objections and he followed the ill-fated Tupia. His age was twenty-three, his complexion a dark copper colour, and though well made, his legs were ‘of that particular bowed make peculiar to all the natives of Guinea’. His ‘address’ was ‘uncommonly courteous’ and even carried with it ‘the air of some breeding’. On the other hand, his ‘parts’ were but dull, for, despite his long stay in England, he could scarce speak the language, ‘only uttering incoherent words’. He could give but little account of his own country, and it was to be feared he would be unable to describe what he had seen in this one. Not for the first time he was unfavourably compared with another voyager from distant parts: ‘The Chinese man brought over by Captain BLAKE, was in ability a Confucius to him, and in very good English he would relate the customs and produce of China in an informing and most pleasing manner.’45
The same process of critical deflation was applied to Omiah’s guardians who were censured for ‘dressing him out in a bag and sword, and leading him forth to all public spectacles’. At this point the writer introduced a novel variation on the views of previous commentators. In his opinion Omiah should have been instructed not in spiritual matters or the art of writing but in medical knowledge which, on returning home, he could have applied to his ‘uninformed fellow creatures’ — those once ‘innocent mortals in a simple state of nature’ now afflicted with ‘dreadful diseases’. Possibly through some association of ideas, there followed references to Omiah’s intimacy with ‘women of quality’ coupled with sly allusions to ‘the depravity of female inclinations’. No mention was made of Banks and Solander, but the First Lord was singled out for special consideration:
OMIAH’S introduction to Court was by Lord S*******, who has always honoured him with a peculiar attention, and carried him over the most pleasing parts of the kingdom: OMIAH in return, has not been ungrateful in his particular attentions to his Lordship’s family. There are various little anecdotes related of him at H*************, but as trivial as possible, and unworthy a repetition; his animal powers were his best, and those he used with freedom and success….46
From Lord Sandwich and Omiah’s unnamed — or perhaps unspeakable — liberties at Hinchingbrooke the censorious spotlight was turned on His Majesty who, without benefit of asterisks, was castigated for speaking of navigators as ‘the first ornaments of his reign’ and for the attention he paid at St. James’s to this ‘human exotic in his native dress’. Finally a picture is conjured up of Omiah returning home, ‘fraught by royal order with squibs, crackers, and a various assortment of fireworks, to show to the wild untutored Indian the great superiority of an enlightened Christian prince.’ He leaves England dejected, and the contrast is striking: ‘here he is honoured with the smiles and favours of red and white goddesses, and from their arms dashed at once to be a naked fisherman.’47
As the last theme is elaborated in the verses that follow, asterisk, innuendo, and explanatory footnote fall thick upon the page. Now presented in the guise of a promiscuous Othello and speaking in his own person, Omiah deplores his ‘dark Numidian’ hue while he farewells a pantheon of white goddesses. His opening tribute is paid to ‘Lady ****** fair’, ‘beauteous Christian, and the Indian’s friend’. He praises her ‘art of painting white and red’, comparing it with the practice of his own ‘savage race, / To daub ignoble parts — nor mend the face’, and wonders whether he might not introduce the cosmetic art to Oberea, so that
On her brown cheek the blushing Rose should blow,
And her tann’d neck appear more white than snow.
Why, he asks, should the women of his country ‘give the tail, what they deny the face?’ And, perhaps in passing allusion to Monboddo, he reflects:
How customs vary, yet how like each kind,
The Man, the Monkey, differ but in mind.48
Mighty Christians may leave their ‘Beauties to explore the Poles’, he concedes, but such exploits are not for him:
Untutor’d, wild, unletter’d, I proclaim
Myself an Indian — not the slave of Fame;
The slave of Love — no other God I own,
No other God is to OMIAH known.
Momentarily his courage fails him and he asks to be left in Britain with his goddesses, safe from the perils of his native islands:
Here let me run the golden sand of life,
Free from all hostile broils and civil strife,
Free from the rage of BOLABOLA’S slaves,
Of wounds unpitied — and untimely graves.
Or, if he must sail away, let Lady ******* accompany him, like Europa on the back of Jupiter, ‘to leave this clouded sky, / And with OMIAH share Eternity.’ From her he turns to drink a toast to other charmers: first to Lady C*****, then in succession to ‘beauteous B******’ and ‘courteous C***’ and ‘lovely T*******’. But in gratitude for past favours he reserves the final tribute for his noble benefactor S*******, referring to his musical accomplishments and those of Miss Ray:
Hail gallant Peer, the Neptune of this day,
Illumin’d too by a cœlestial Ray:
May’st thou be ravish’d while she sweetly sings,
And VIRTUE shade thee with her silver wings:
May’st thou with HONOUR long direct the fleet,
And CUPID’S kettle drums with rapture beat!49
Sandwich, under his popular nickname of Jemmy Twitcher, also figures in a second set of valedictory verses, ‘Omiah: an Ode’, which perhaps on account of its mildly scurrilous nature remained in manuscript until published some years later in The New Foundling Hospital for Wit. The ode, reputedly by John Townshend, is addressed to Charlotte Hayes, a notorious bawd, who is urged to collect her ‘vestals’, descend on Jemmy Twitcher, and with their ‘sugar’d kisses’ persuade him ‘To waft OMIAH home, in charge of ‘patriot P-PPS’. ‘But first’, she is advised, ‘bribe madam Ray.’ In an abrupt transition, Omiah is shown restored to his country where, surrounded by queen, wives, and virgins, he ‘displays / His splendid arms and dress’, while he ‘flourishes his fork and knife’, and, now quite explicitly presented as a South Seas Othello, relates his experiences:
Of wondrous sights, OMIAH tells
Of asses — apes — and Sadlers Wells!
And of our smooth cestinos!
— How he admir’d a masquerade,
Was sometimes ‘prentice to the trade
Of op’ras — and festinos!
Whereupon:
Capricious beauties — fond to change,
Will cry, ‘’tis strange, ‘tis wondrous strange,’
And hug their dear OMIAH!50
The erotic note introduced by Charlotte Hayes and her maidens (with its suggestion that Omiah’s associates were not always drawn from the world of fashion) is combined with social and political satire. The brief ode is studded with allusions to topical events and personages of the time while others are supplied in the footnotes that crowd each page. There are such generalized targets as ‘MACARONIES’ and ‘fops’ but most are named or lightly disguised. The ‘patriot P—PPS’ appears not only as a possible escort for Omiah but as the ‘present L—rd M—LGR—VE’, rejected parliamentary candidate for Newcastle and now ‘in the service of Lord S—NDW—CH’. The two ingenious gentlemen make brief appearances in minor roles: B— —KS is given credit for teaching Omiah ‘to play at chess’; Dr. S—L—D—R is shown complaining because he, a Swede, was not allowed to instruct the visitor in the northern art of skating. Less trivial in their significance are the references to American affairs. ‘Omiah’, runs one note, ‘has been presented with a rich suit of armour, to enable him to conquer Otaheite. He is to hold it by charter from the Crown, and has promised to acknowledge the right of taxation, and the supremacy of the British parliament.’ The writer elaborates the idea in his closing stanzas where he pillories ‘bold G—RM—NE’ (Lord George Germain, secretary of state for the colonies), attributes to him recent American losses, and predicts the establishment of British power in the Pacific:
My Lord applauds OMIAH’S skill,
. . . .
— Resigns an Isle, and Boston town,
Joins Otaheite to the Crown,
And makes OMI’— — VICEROY!51
Satirical criticism of Omai’s frivolous tastes and manner of life is borne out to some extent by a further source. Late in June Banks and his clerks drew up their last reckoning, ‘Expences incurrd on account of Omai in the Year 1776’. Certain basic items showed no great change when compared with the previous record. ‘Mr de Vignoles’, as he was now termed, was paid £80-0-0 for ‘Board and Lodging’ with £9-15-6 for ‘Necessaries’ — perhaps a larger sum than he was entitled to since no reference was made to similar services for Mr. Andrews. Omai himself was treated rather more liberally in the matter of pocket money, receiving five guineas a month or thirty in all. In other respects, however, there were marked increases, and the grand total was £395-8-9, exceeding the £317 odd spent during 1775. The difference was partly due to the fact that payment for some of the gifts recommended by Banks was included in this account. Among such entries was £4-0-0 for ‘Drums’, £10-2-4 for ‘Beads’, £4-14-6 for ‘2 Women’s Dresses’, with £20-7-7 paid to ‘Ironmongers’, £2-12-6 to ‘printsellers’ (for royal likenesses?), £3-17-6 for ‘Toyman’s Bill’, and £5-19-0 ‘payd for a Sword’. Current expenses were not always listed separately: one large item of £135-2-0 was described as ‘Account of presents for Messrs Omai and Odidde in which Mr Omais Cloathing for the last half year and the Voyage are included’. But Omai acquired many other articles of apparel, as successive entries show: a tailor’s bill for £86-1-6, two from linen drapers for £33-9-6, two from a shoemaker for £10-5-6, one from a hosier for £12-4-0, and another from a hatter for £3-5-6. Nor was this all, for there was a supplementary list of his purchases, mostly for clothes and footwear, amounting to the sum of £20-19-9. He spent a relatively modest £3-2-6 with his apothecary and only £12-4-0 with his wine merchant, but the bill from his hairdresser showed a spectacular rise — from £3-13-0 for the previous year to £10-14-0 for the last six months of his stay.52 Altogether, the accounts suggest Omai’s vanity and extravagance but there was little evidence of dissipation. Proof of that was still to come.
