308 Tim CRUISE OF THE ' GUBAQOA.' 



lugiis as the person most responsible for what jiad liap- 

 penecl. To this censure this gentleman made an elaborate 

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

 Avithin itself the means of testing the character and value of 

 his advice. 



In the 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 would 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 Wilhams 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 affair. To these unpleasant 

 criticisms Mr. Inglis replies with the 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 

 impression left on our minds by 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 

 jprivate and mission property.' 



