Now destroying the authority of the chiefs set the people loose. It did
not pretend to bring any positive good, but only to cure some evil; and
I am not well enough acquainted with the country to know what degree of
evil the heritable jurisdictions occasioned[521].' I maintained hardly
any; because the chiefs generally acted right, for their own sakes.
Dr. Johnson was now wishing to move. There was not enough of
intellectual entertainment for him, after he had satisfied his
curiosity, which he did, by asking questions, till he had exhausted the
island; and where there was so numerous a company, mostly young people,
there was such a flow of familiar talk, so much noise, and so much
singing and dancing, that little opportunity was left for his energetick
conversation[522]. He seemed sensible of this; for when I told him how
happy they were at having him there, he said, 'Yet we have not been able
to entertain them much.' I was fretted, from irritability of nerves, by
M'Cruslick's too obstreperous mirth. I complained of it to my friend,
observing we should be better if he was, gone. 'No, Sir (said he). He
puts something into our society, and takes nothing out of it.' Dr.
Johnson, however, had several opportunities of instructing the company;
but I am sorry to say, that I did not pay sufficient attention to what
passed, as his discourse now turned chiefly on mechanicks, agriculture
and such subjects, rather than on science and wit.
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