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RESULTS OF HIS VOYAGES.

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happy spots on the bosom of the Pacific, where the inhabitants had been christianized and civilized, without having seen a European.^[1]

This great moral revolution, unprecedented in the history of nations, not only brought to a benighted and wretched people the hope of eternal life, but has proved the means of saving them from almost total annihilation. Owing to the causes mentioned in p. 187, especially the prevalence of infanticide, the population of Otaheite, and other

↑ The faithfulness and success of the Missionaries in the S. Sea Islands being now matters of history, established on the unimpeachable testimonies of British, American, and French navigators, it seems strange that any persons bearing the Christian name, should have the hardihood and the malice, to attempt to vilify the character, or depreciate the labours, of those self-denied men, who deserve the thanks of the whole Christian world. The gross calumnies uttered against them by Kotzebue, who, while committing the most notorious blunders himself, pretends to correct Captain Cook, are triumphantly answered by Mr. Ellis, in his Vindication of the S. Sea Missions; where he also refutes some unjust reflections of Capt. Beechey on the females of Otaheite. One of the most unwarrantable and scandalous attacks on the Missionaries, has been made in the "Eventful History of the Mutiny of the Bounty," where they are charged with having reduced the Tahitians "to a state of complete pauperism," converted their simplicity of character "into cunning and hypocrisy," nay, diminished the population of the island, through the effect of "praying, psalm-singing, and dram-drinking!!!" How the salutary exercise of prayer, or the delightful duty of praising God, could reduce the population, is an enigma not easily solved; but the association of these with "dram-drinking," implies one of the foulest slanders that could have been uttered. There is nothing which the Missionaries have more strenuously opposed than the use of ardent spirits, which has proved one of the greatest obstacles to their success; and to check this baneful destroyer, they have zealously laboured to establish Temperance Societies, wherever drunkenness had prevailed. Turnball, in his Voyages, has well said, "I know no sufficient punishment that the wretch would merit, who should import a cargo of spiritous liquors into the Sandwich or Society Islands; it would in every respect be tantamount to the wilful administration of an equal quantity of poison, &c." Yet such wretches have visited the islands; and because the Missionaries have opposed their unhallowed traffic, and especially because their licentious commerce with females has been checked through the influence of the gospel on the natives, they have advanced the basest charges against those worthy men,—charges, which the enemies of religion at home have been eager to spread. That the Missionaries have pauperized the natives, is one of those vile slanders: the gospel has made them rich and happy, industrious and cheerful. That their character has been changed, is indeed true; but it is a change, not from simplicity to cunning; but from vice to virtue, from treachery to fidelity, from cruelty to kindness, from all that is vile, to all that is amiable. This writer derides the Missionaries, for their laudable attempts to introduce British laws, and the forms of the British constitution; and charges them with selfishness, in keeping the cattle chiefly under their own care; a measure which Cook, had he been alive, would have warmly recommended, to ensure the preservation and increase of the breed. That the Missionaries engross the trade of Otaheite to themselves, is another scandalous falsehood: they are pursuing far nobler objects.
This author's remarks on religion are strangely inconsistent. He reproaches the Missionaries as illiterate and unqualified, yet extols the labours of John Adams; he praises the Bible, yet laments the evangelization of Otaheite, and ridicules the idea of seeking "food for the soul!" In other respects, his work is highly interesting, although not remarkable for correctness: he confounds the tupapow with the morai.

[1] The faithfulness and success of the Missionaries in the S. Sea Islands being now matters of history, established on the unimpeachable testimonies of British, American, and French navigators, it seems strange that any persons bearing the Christian name, should have the hardihood and the malice, to attempt to vilify the character, or depreciate the labours, of those self-denied men, who deserve the thanks of the whole Christian world. The gross calumnies uttered against them by Kotzebue, who, while committing the most notorious blunders himself, pretends to correct Captain Cook, are triumphantly answered by Mr. Ellis, in his Vindication of the S. Sea Missions; where he also refutes some unjust reflections of Capt. Beechey on the females of Otaheite. One of the most unwarrantable and scandalous attacks on the Missionaries, has been made in the "Eventful History of the Mutiny of the Bounty," where they are charged with having reduced the Tahitians "to a state of complete pauperism," converted their simplicity of character "into cunning and hypocrisy," nay, diminished the population of the island, through the effect of "praying, psalm-singing, and dram-drinking!!!" How the salutary exercise of prayer, or the delightful duty of praising God, could reduce the population, is an enigma not easily solved; but the association of these with "dram-drinking," implies one of the foulest slanders that could have been uttered. There is nothing which the Missionaries have more strenuously opposed than the use of ardent spirits, which has proved one of the greatest obstacles to their success; and to check this baneful destroyer, they have zealously laboured to establish Temperance Societies, wherever drunkenness had prevailed. Turnball, in his Voyages, has well said, "I know no sufficient punishment that the wretch would merit, who should import a cargo of spiritous liquors into the Sandwich or Society Islands; it would in every respect be tantamount to the wilful administration of an equal quantity of poison, &c." Yet such wretches have visited the islands; and because the Missionaries have opposed their unhallowed traffic, and especially because their licentious commerce with females has been checked through the influence of the gospel on the natives, they have advanced the basest charges against those worthy men,—charges, which the enemies of religion at home have been eager to spread. That the Missionaries have pauperized the natives, is one of those vile slanders: the gospel has made them rich and happy, industrious and cheerful. That their character has been changed, is indeed true; but it is a change, not from simplicity to cunning; but from vice to virtue, from treachery to fidelity, from cruelty to kindness, from all that is vile, to all that is amiable. This writer derides the Missionaries, for their laudable attempts to introduce British laws, and the forms of the British constitution; and charges them with selfishness, in keeping the cattle chiefly under their own care; a measure which Cook, had he been alive, would have warmly recommended, to ensure the preservation and increase of the breed. That the Missionaries engross the trade of Otaheite to themselves, is another scandalous falsehood: they are pursuing far nobler objects.
This author's remarks on religion are strangely inconsistent. He reproaches the Missionaries as illiterate and unqualified, yet extols the labours of John Adams; he praises the Bible, yet laments the evangelization of Otaheite, and ridicules the idea of seeking "food for the soul!" In other respects, his work is highly interesting, although not remarkable for correctness: he confounds the tupapow with the morai.

[1]