EARLY WHITE SETTLERS. 407 



position in Polynesia who is not a polygamist, he de- 

 manded a number of wives, amongst them some of the 

 highest ladies of the realm. Thus far his native friends 

 seem to have been willing to allow his carefully con- 

 cealed plan to succeed. Every additional step in advance 

 was rendered impossible ; the natives were fully aware 

 that if any of his sons whom a great chief, as Savage was 

 considered to be, had by the daughters of powerful kings 

 and leaders, should ever attain manhood, they would be 

 in a position to exercise an unmitigated despotism, and 

 set on foot a centralizing influence, which the centrifu- 

 gal tendency of the Fijian mind has ever as strongly re- 

 sisted as the Teutonic. According to Fijian polity, the 

 sons of great queens, such as Savage had for his wives, 

 would, in virtue of their right as " Vasus" or nephews, 

 hold the territory and property of their uncles at their 

 absolute disposal, which, combined with their position 

 as sons of a great chief, would have given them an im- 

 mense preponderance. It was therefore deemed politic 

 to allow none of Savage's children to be other than 

 still-born; he might have wives of the highest rank, 

 but there must be no offspring. On this point the na- 

 tives seem to have been inflexible, though Savage seemed 

 to have strained every nerve to frustrate their cruel de- 

 termination. The stand which the natives made, became 

 the rock on which the hopes of the white men to esta- 

 blish their permanent sway in Fiji were wrecked. Savage 

 died in March, 1814, near Vanua Levu, where he carried 

 on a war with the natives in order to procure a cargo of 

 sandalwood for an English trading vessel, the ' Hunter,' 

 of Calcutta. Together with portions of the crew, he was 



