of entertainments furnished to their British guests, a diabolical plot was laid by some of the native chiefs, to fall upon them suddenly, and massacre them all, with a view to get possession of the ships, and all their valuable contents. That such a plot was devised, and was only prevented from being carried into effect, through a difference of opinion among the chiefs, as to the proper time for giving the signal, and making the attack, is strongly asserted in Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands, Vol. II. p. 64, &c. There are many statements in that book glaringly incorrect, such as the account of the murder of the Missionaries. Indeed, it sets out with a notorious blunder in the very dedication, which states that Sir Joseph Banks visited the Tonga Islands with Captain Cook. There is something in Mariner's account of the plot, not consistent with Cook's narrative; particularly in speaking of another grand entertainment by day, succeeding the great night dance, of which entertainment Cook makes no mention: yet as Mariner was informed of this plot by several chiefs who were concerned in it, and by a son of Feenou himself; and as it is known, that the same treacherous designs were formed against other ships that afterwards visited these islands, and too often were carried into effect, as in the case of the Port au Prince, Mariner's own ship, which was seized by the natives at this same island Lefooga, there is reason to believe that such a plot was conceived and proposed. From the duplicity with which Feenou acted in some other matters, we may conceive him capable of such villany; although he is not said to have been the contriver of the plot, but only to have fallen in with it, when proposed
