308 THE CBUISE OF THE 'OUBAQOA.' 



Iu<'lis as tlie person most responsible for what iiad hap- 

 pened. To this censm-e this gentleman made an elaborate 

 reply (a copy of which I have) which, I think, furnishes 

 within itself the means of testing the character and value of 

 his advice. 



lu tlie first place, as respects Tanna the charge was, it 

 appears, that Mr. Paton had been advised ' by the elder 

 missionaries ' to quit the island for awhile, and that had he 

 done so the mission woidd not have been broken up ; and, 

 moreover, that what had wounded him most deeply, as the 

 chief of his hardships, was the injury done to his furniture.^ 

 Then with regard to the two great crimes at Eramanga — 

 the murder of Williams and Harris in 1839, and that of 

 the Gordons in 1861 — it was alleged, in reproof of these 

 proceedings, that the former was the result of miscon- 

 ception ; the latter of misrepresentation by white men, 

 who were thus, in fact, the instigators of the outrage, 

 and the worst culprits in the afHiir. To these unpleasant 

 criticisms Mr. Inglis replies with tlie usual tale of horrors, 

 laying down as a postulate that it is of no use to attempt 

 to palliate the conduct of the natives by throwing dis- 

 credit on the whites. Having settled this point to his 

 satisfaction, he makes, in justification of his penal policy, 



' 'Mr. Meade, in his interesting work, ' New Zealand and South Sea 

 Islands,' p. 231, confirms this view ; where, after observing ' that the 

 irapression left on our minds b}* the missionaries of this society was 

 not altogether favourable,' he adds, 'in recounting their grievances and 

 sufferings, too much stress was laid, to my thinking, on the loss of 

 private and mission property.' 



