TONGUESE TACTICS. 255 



name in order to advance his own ; and they perceived 

 too late that they had been made the dupes of an un- 

 scrupulous and ambitious man. 



At the height of his power, Maafu is supposed to have 

 had no less than three thousand fighting-men of his own 

 nation, independent of his Fijian allies, and after the 

 signing of the document of the 14th of December, 1859, 

 had placed a curb on his ambition, the number re- 

 maining was still sufficiently great to cause uneasiness 

 to the natives. On the part of Mr. Pritchard it re- 

 quired extreme watchfulness, lest the bloodshed which 

 had so seriously diminished the population and injured 

 the prosperity of the islands should be renewed. Maafu 

 exhibited little inclination to return to Tonga; there 

 was still hope that, in case England should reject the 

 proffered cession, the conquest of the whole group by 

 Tonguese arms might become a reality. He therefore 

 enjoined his partisans to remain quite passive until the 

 danger was past, and not commit any rash act. A cha- 

 racteristic letter to that effect was sent in the middle of 

 1860 to Bega and Kadavu, the contents of which became 

 a public secret. But men, who had so long been accus- 

 tomed to behave with all the insolence of conquerors, 

 who regarded Fiji in no other light save a fair field for 

 lust and plunder, and would not disdain to plant the 

 battle-axe in the public squares, and insultingly demand 

 either an ample supply of animal and vegetable food or 

 the heads of so many Fijians such men were not easily 

 kept quiet. Complaints were rife wherever Tongamen 

 resided, how they plundered the natives, and how, by 

 intimidation, they forced the weaker chiefs to behave 



