Yet the situation in which Bligh found Tu would have roused doubts in the mind of any one except a sailor or a soldier. Tu was almost at his last gasp when the Bounty arrived. Pare Arue had been thoroughly ravaged and plundered; everything that Cook gave to Tu had been carried away; a cow was at Faaa; the bull was at Hitiaa; a chest which had been made expressly for Tu, large enough for him and his wife to sleep on, was said to be in Eimeo. Apparently the whole body of Tu’s neighbors had united to punish and impoverish him. Bligh remarked that although Tu went with him to Faaa, he did not land, but remained in the boat, and received no sign of respect, nor even a cocoanut or a breadfruit. He would not go with Bligh to Eimeo on any terms, "but said that, notwithstanding my protection, he was certain the Eimeo people would watch for an opportunity to kill him." He stood in fear even of his half-brother Ariipaea, who seemed to. be much the more respected of the two; and the chief of Matavai, Poeeno, told Bligh that Tu and his brother Ariipaea "were not on good terms together, and it was imagined that they would fight as soon as the ship was gone." Tu’s position was so desperate that he begged Bligh to take him and his wife, Tetua, to England, and Bligh was at some loss for an excuse.

"To quiet his importunity, I was obliged to promise that I would ask the king’s permission to carry them to England if I came again; that then I should be in a larger ship and could have accommodations properly fitted up. I was sorry to find that Tinah [Tu] was apprehensive he should be attacked by his enemies as soon as our ship left Otaheite, and that if they joined they would be too powerful for him. The illness of Teppahoo [Tepau of Ahurai], with whom he was on good terms, gave

Indigenous Histories