SECT. II.] CAUSES OP DEPOPULATION. 161 



of all children born are said to have thus perished. 1 To this 

 must be added internal wars, combined with cannibalism and 

 human sacrifices, for where men eat each other, the gods are 

 generally bloodthirsty, and receive their share. With regard 

 to the devastations caused by wars, we shall mention but one 

 fact, viz., that, at the conquest of the western part of the Pau- 

 mota Islands, thirty-eight islands were depopulated, and their 

 inhabitants slain or carried into slavery. 2 Moreover, those who 

 possessed the most fertile islands of Polynesia entirely neg- 

 lected agriculture, and ruined themselves by the greatest prodi- 

 gality at their feasts, consuming all provisions, so that the 

 lower classes died by famine. 



The introduction of Christianity in the South Sea islands 

 removed many of these sources of destruction, others were 

 mitigated so that this progressive decay was arrested. The 

 bloody wars, cannibalism, human sacrifices, and infanticide dis- 

 appeared almost entirely ; and it must be denounced as a 

 calumny inspired by party spirit, that French navigators, to 

 serve the interest of their Government and their faith, have 

 endeavoured to spread the opinion, that the depopulation of the 

 Sandwich islands can only be explained by the severe laws and 

 the system of intimidation established and practised by the 

 influence of Protestant missionaries ; that the women fled to 

 the forests to kill their illegitimate children in order to escape 

 punishment. 3 We must, on the contrary, acknowledge that 

 the missionaries are entitled to credit for their endeavours to 

 improve the physical and moral condition of the islanders, 

 though their activity cannot be said to have proved beneficial 

 in all respects. Their severity appears to have produced the 

 concealment of many vices and crimes, and the sudden change 

 of the habits of life which were at once and with great strictness 

 forced upon the natives, sometimes may have proved injurious. 

 There can, however, be no doubt that, on the whole, the material 

 condition of the South Sea peoples, which alone concerns us 



1 Stewart, " Journal of a residence in the Sandwich Islands," p. 250, 1828. 



2 Wilkes, i, p. 343 ; Hale, p. 35. 



3 Laplace, " Campagne de circumnavigation," V, p. 470, 1841 ; Du Petit- 

 Thouai's, " Voy. autour du monde," i, p. 389, 1840; de la Salle, " Voy. autour 

 du monde sur la Bonite," ii, p. 198, 1845. 



M* 



