tianity has been communicated by either European or native teachers, comprises nearly 50,000 persons; and the Marquesas may contain, Mr. Ellis thinks, upwards of 30,000 more.

We have, perhaps, already occupied too much room in exposing the wilful misrepresentations of the Russian Navigator; and we shall dismiss him and his admirers after briefly noticing a few of his minor offences. The Missionary Wilson, to whose cordial hospitality and friendly services, Kotzebue owns himself to have been personally indebted, is stigmatised as 'an unedu'cated sailor', 'originally a common sailor', who had confused the half savage' natives with his dogmas, instead of teaching them pure morality, and as an instigator of the bloody persecution. Mr. Wilson never was a sailor. Prior to his connexion with the Missionary Society, he was a member of the church under the pastoral care of the late Rev. Dr. Waugh. The rest of the libel is beneath notice; but we may just add, that what either the teachers or the taught understood of Christianity, their treacherous visiter could not possibly judge, owing to his ignorance both of the Christian doctrine itself, and of the language in which the instructions of the Missionaries were communicated. Again, in order to estimate the effect of the ca'tastrophe' occasioned by the introduction of Christianity, Kotzebue would have us compare Christian Tahiti with the golden age of the island, when the time of the amiable Pagans was passed in indolence and enjoyment'. Then, 'oppressed by no care, burdened with no toil, tormented by no passion, the Tahitians passed a life of enjoyment under the magnificent sky of the tropics, amid scenes worthy of paradise. Now, among the remains of these murdered people, their former ' admirable industry, and their joyous buoyancy of spirits, have been exchanged for continual praying and meditating. The Tahitians of the present day hardly know to plait their mats, make their paper stuffs, or cultivate a few roots. They content themselves with the bread-fruit, which the soil yields spontaneously in quantities more than sufficient for their re'duced population. Their navy, which excited the astonish'ment of Europeans, has entirely disappeared,' &c. &c. Passing over the palpable contradictions in this representation, which makes the Tahitians to have been in former times distinguished at once by their indolence' and by their admirable ' industry', to say nothing too of the Writer's entire incompetency to judge of the present condition of a people with whom he had scarcely any intercourse, we shall simply transcribe the following statement of facts from Mr. Ellis's Vin

dication.

When Turnbull, who was at Matavai in 1803, arrived, there was

race, has been the introduction of the art of distillation, and the extensive use of ardent spirits. They had, before they were visited by our ships, a kind of intoxicating beverage called ava; but the deleterious effects resulting from its use, were confined to a comparatively small portion of the inhabitants. The growth of the plant from which it was procured, was slow; its culture required care; it was usually tabued for the chiefs; and the common people were as strictly prohibited from appropriating it to their own use, as the peasantry are in reference to game in England. Its effects also were rather sedative than narcotic or inebriating. But after the Tahitians had been taught by foreign seamen and natives of the Sandwich Islands, to distil spirits from indigenous roots, and rum had been carried to the islands in abundance as an article of barter, intoxication became almost universal; and all the demoralization, crimes, and misery, that follow in its train, were added to the multiplied sorrows and wasting Scourges of the people. It nurtured indolence and spread discord through their families, increased the abominations of the Areoi society, and the unnatural crime of infanticide. Before going to the temple to offer a human sacrifice to their gods, the priests have been known to intoxicate themselves, in order that they might be insensible to any unpleasant feelings this horrid work might excite.

These causes, operating upon a people whose simple habits of diet rendered their constitutions remarkably susceptible of violent impressions, are, to a reflecting mind, quite sufficient to account for the rapid depopulation of the islands within the last fifty or sixty years.' Ellis's Polynesian Researches, Vol. I. pp. 106–108.

Of the existence and activity of these causes of depopulation, -infanticide, human sacrifices, frequent wars, debaucheries, and the diseases introduced by profligate Europeans, Kotzebue could not be ignorant; in fact, he elsewhere admits the facts; and yet, he has the effrontery to represent the bloody intro'duction of the religion of the Missionaries' as the sole cause of the desolation, antedating its introduction nearly twenty years, to give colour to his malignant falsehood! With equal truth might it be alleged, that the labours of Brainerd have occasioned the rapid decrease of the native tribes of North America. That the Russian Captain could be so stupid as to believe his own representation, we cannot imagine. However this may be, the philanthropist will rejoice to learn, what indeed could not have been doubted by any rational person, that although, sixteen years ago, the nation appeared on the verge of extinction, since the year 1820, the population has been rapidly increasing. Mr. Ellis estimates the present number of inhabitants in Tahiti, at about 10,000; in Eimeo and Tetuaroa at (probably) 2000; the Leeward Islands are supposed to contain an equal number. The total population of the Georgian and Society Islands, together with the adjacent clusters, with which the natives maintain constant intercourse, and to which Chris

tianity has been communicated by either European or native teachers, comprises nearly 50,000 persons; and the Marquesas may contain, Mr. Ellis thinks, upwards of 30,000 more.

We have, perhaps, already occupied too much room in exposing the wilful misrepresentations of the Russian Navigator; and we shall dismiss him and his admirers after briefly noticing a few of his minor offences. The Missionary Wilson, to whose cordial hospitality and friendly services, Kotzebue owns himself to have been personally indebted, is stigmatised as 'an unedu'cated sailor', 'originally a common sailor', who had confused the 'half savage' natives with his dogmas, instead of teaching them pure morality, and as an instigator of the bloody persecution. Mr. Wilson never was a sailor. Prior to his connexion with the Missionary Society, he was a member of the church under the pastoral care of the late Rev. Dr. Waugh. The rest of the libel is beneath notice; but we may just add, that what either the teachers or the taught understood of Christianity, their treacherous visiter could not possibly judge, owing to his ignorance both of the Christian doctrine itself, and of the language in which the instructions of the Missionaries were communicated. Again, in order to estimate the effect of the ca'tastrophe' occasioned by the introduction of Christianity, Kotzebue would have us compare Christian Tahiti with the golden age of the island, when the time of the amiable Pagans was passed in indolence and enjoyment'. Then, 'oppressed by no care, burdened with no toil, tormented by no passion, Ithe Tahitians passed a life of enjoyment under the magnificent 'sky of the tropics, amid scenes worthy of paradise. Now,

among the remains of these murdered people, their former 'admirable industry, and their joyous buoyancy of spirits, have ⚫ been exchanged for continual praying and meditating. The Tahitians of the present day hardly know to plait their mats, make their paper stuffs, or cultivate a few roots. They content themselves with the bread-fruit, which the soil yields spontaneously in quantities more than sufficient for their re'duced population. Their navy, which excited the astonish'ment of Europeans, has entirely disappeared,' &c. &c. Passing over the palpable contradictions in this representation, which makes the Tahitians to have been in former times distinguished at once by their indolence' and by their 'admirable ' industry', to say nothing too of the Writer's entire incompetency to judge of the present condition of a people with whom he had scarcely any intercourse, we shall simply transcribe the following statement of facts from Mr. Ellis's Vindication.

When Turnbull, who was at Matavai in 1803, arrived, there was

one ship in the bay. As soon as he anchored, he learned from the master of this ship, and the Missionaries who visited him, that provisions were scarce; and some time afterwards he writes:

"We found the report of the Missionaries, of the dearth prevailing in the island, too true; for we had as yet been able to procure no fresh provisions, except a pig sent to us by one of the Missionaries.”

So great is the difference, in this respect only, between the state of the islanders at that period, and at the present time, that now more than thirty ships sometimes touch at Tahiti in the course of the year, and obtain supplies; besides which, five or six annually procure refreshments at other islands.

As to the disappearance of their navy, (the fleets of canoes mentioned by Cook and Forster,) they were nearly annihilated in the native wars which occurred before the Missionaries landed, and entirely so before the people became Christians; but, since becoming Christians, they have acquired a navy superior to any that ever before existed in the islands.

Even the construction of his own vessel, the Predpriatie, Captain Kotzebue tells us,

"Was not likely to interest her (the queen's) curiosity, as she was herself the owner of a well-built English merchant-ship."

This ship trades regularly between the islands and New South Wales. Other chiefs also possess small vessels, and large boats or schooners, built by themselves, under the direction of European workmen. The natives of the neighbouring, or Society Islands, have, besides those now in hand, built seven vessels, from forty to seventy tons burden. These trade to different islands of the Pacific; and the natives are making rapid advances in commercial enterprise.'

Though Kotzebue states that no spinning-wheel or loom has yet appeared, all who know any thing of the islands know that both have been taken there by Missionaries, and the natives taught to spin and weave, and that a number of the natives have obtained, and worn, cloth spun and woven in the islands. The apparatus for sugar-manufactories was sent out by the Missionary Society in 1818; and, for the last ten years, the people in Tahiti, and its neighbourhood, have made excellent sugar.

There is a plantation a few miles to the south of Matavai, and not far from the true situation of Port Papeete, belonging to a nephew of one of the late Missionaries. It is cultivated by natives, and yields sometimes ten tons of sugar in the year, which is sold for, perhaps, two thousand dollars. There is another plantation at Papara, belonging to the chief of the place, and a son of one of the Missionaries, who is master of a native vessel.

The queen possesses, we are told, a pair of horses; there are nearly twenty in the island. Most of the chiefs possess cattle; but to whom are they indebted for them? Captain Cook, indeed, left some, but the natives destroyed them. At my arrival at Tahiti in 1817, there was not a single animal of this kind on the island. When the Missionaries returned to Tahiti, they took cattle from Eimeo, where they had preserved them during the destructive wars that had ravaged Tahiti. From these, and others since brought from New South Wales, there

are now, perhaps, not fewer than three hundred head of cattle in Tahiti, and ships are supplied with fresh meat, of excellent quality, at an average of three-pence per pound. Was it ignorance, or some more culpable feeling, that induced the author to say,

"Cattle have been brought to them; but, in consequence of the introduction of Christianity, the few that remain have fallen into the hands of the strangers, and have become so scarce," &c.

Cattle might not be so numerous when Kotzebue was there, as they have since become; but no fresh importation has taken place. In either case, all confidence in his testimony must be destroyed, though in the one he is less criminal than in the other. In 1818, we conveyed the first cattle to the Leeward Islands; others have since been brought from Port Jackson, and they are now spread throughout the whole groupe.

The trades of carpenter, smith, turner, mason, cotton-spinner, weaver, &c., the culture of cotton, sugar, tobacco, (with the latter, one hundred and fifty acres were at one time planted,) coffee, and other products of the soil, with salt-making, and various minor arts, have been taught to the natives by the Missionary artisans, and convey the best refutation of the insinuation, that the Missionaries encourage idleness. On the contrary, when the present daily employments of those who have yielded themselves to the influence of Christianity, are compared with their former habits, even the charge of idleness falls to the ground. Industry, and a love of labour, are so totally ungenial to the natural dispositions of the natives, that it might have afforded, to a candid observer, matter of no little gratification, to remark, that they had actually made such advances as they have done, in those praiseworthy attainments.' pp. 62-68.

We now turn from the pitiable display of prejudice and malignity which has called forth Mr. Ellis's able Vindication,' to the interesting record of one of the most remarkable voyages ever undertaken since Sir Francis Drake first executed the bold project of crossing the Pacific. It must be known to most of our readers, that in the year 1821, the Rev. Daniel Tyerman, of the Isle of Wight, and George Bennet, Esq., of Sheffield, were deputed by the London Missionary Society, to visit, in the first instance, their stations in the Islands of the South Seas; and subsequently to extend their embassy to Java, the East Indies, and Madagascar. The Deputation sailed from Gravesend, May 5, 1821. On August 1st, they reached the parallel of 69° 30′ S., in the longitude of Cape Horn, and began to double that formidable cape; on the 28th, they fell in with the south-east trade-winds, and on the 19th of September, the first green island of the west' saluted their eyes about sun-rise. We must transcribe the striking reflections which occur in the joint Journal of the Deputation under the date of September 16th (Sunday).

Where we have held public worship to day, (Lat. 16° 59′ S.,