Page:The Life and Voyages of Captain James Cook (Young).djvu/502

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464

LIFE OF COOK.

isles, was rapidly decreasing. According to Turnbull, two thirds of the infants born in Otaheite were destroyed; and female children being most frequently the victims, the women on the island constituted only about a tenth part of the inhabitants! But, thanks to a gracious Providence, the progress of this fearful havoc has been arrested by the gospel; and under its benign influence, the people are increasing in number and in happiness. Christianity would have advanced more speedily, had it not been retarded by the conduct of dissolute seamen, who in the isles of the Pacific, as Capt. Beechey justly observes, "do infinite mischief to the lower order of the natives, by encouraging^[1]

↑ &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] &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.

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