BAD DISPOSITION OF THE KING. 197 



Karemaku was the good genius who watched 

 over the welfare of the country, while its mo- 

 narch was wasting his hours and his health in 

 orgies, at which he was frequently known to 

 empty a bottle of rum at a draught. It was not 

 to be supposed that a king addicted to such 

 habits should conceive any projects of utility 

 or advantage for his people ; he wished, however, 

 to distinguish himself by some effort in their 

 favour, or at least to relieve them from the 

 trammels of superstition. He was a freethinker 

 in a bad sense. He hated the religion of his 

 country, because it laid some restraints upon his 

 inclinations, and he determined to overthrow it ; 

 not for the purpose of introducing a better, a 

 task to which his feeble mind was unequal, but 

 for that of at once relieving himself and his sub- 

 jects from ceremonies which he considered use- 

 less, because he undervalued the precepts of mo- 

 rality interwoven with them, and for the sake 

 of which his father had always conscientiously 

 observed them. 



In the fifth month of his reign, he proceeded 

 in a violent and brutal manner, notwithstanding 

 all the remonstrances of Karemaku, to the exe- 



