310 THE GBUI8E OF THE 'GUBAQOA.' 



not a single reference is made, by way of accounting for 

 tliem, to the exasperation caused among them, first, by the 

 introduction of small-pox in 1853 by a trading vessel (as 

 reported by Messrs. Murray and Sunderland) ; ' and, secondly, 

 in 1861, when large ninnbers were swept into the grave by 

 the introduction of measles,* under the influence of which 

 they were easily induced to believe the story of some 

 intriguing whites, who, as Mr. Paton himself declares, had 

 been busy in persuading them that he was the cause of 

 these scourges. But Mr. Inglis can see no extenuating 

 circumstances in all this ; nothing to divert ' British power' 

 from inflicting punishment, ' inspiring the greatest amount of 

 terror,' Avithout stopping to take counsel of British justice 

 before it did so. 



Let us now turn to Eramanga and the murder of the 

 Gordons, which Mr. Inglis's critic ascribes, it seems, to tlie 

 ignorance of the natives worked upon by the misrepresen- 

 tations of white men ; but this Mr. Inglis himself treats with 

 contempt, attributing tlie crime to the savage ferocity of 

 the native character, combined with an irrepressible desire 

 to molest, pillage, and destroy the mission. Now we must 

 ))e able to conceive that some great and unexplained change 

 must have taken place in the disposition and the deportment 

 of the inhabitants of Dillon's Bay within a few years, if this 

 theory is to be sustained. For we have the testimony of 

 two missionaries to the extreme tranquillity of the island 

 and the orderly behaviour of the natives in 1854. Not 



' Ibirl. pp. 153-155. * Ibifl. p. :Wfl. 



