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- 



