TONGUESE TACTICS. 255 
name in order to advance his own ; and they perceived 
too late that they had been made the dupes of an un- 
scrupulous and ambitious man. 
At the height of his power, Maafu is supposed to have 
“had no less than three thousand fighting-men of his own 
nation, independent of his Fijian allies, and after the 
signing of the document of the 14th of December, 1859, 
had placed a curb on his ambition, the number re- 
maining was still sufficiently great to cause uneasiness 
to the natives. On the part of Mr. Pritchard it re- 
quired extreme watchfulness, lest the bloodshed which 
had so seriously diminished the population and injured 
the prosperity of the islands should be renewed. Maafu 
exhibited little inclination to return to Tonga; there 
was still hope that, in case England should reject the 
proffered cession, the conquest of the whole group by 
Tonguese arms might become a reality. He therefore 
enjoined his partisans to remain quite passive until the 
danger was past, and not commit any rash act. A cha- 
racteristic letter to that effect was sent in the middle of 
1860 to Bega and Kadavu, the contents of which became 
a public secret. But men, who had so long been accus- 
tomed to behave with all the insolence of conquerors, 
who regarded Fiji in no other light save a fair field for 
lust and plunder, and would not disdain to plant the 
battle-axe in the public squares, and insultingly demand 
either an ample supply of animal and vegetable food or 
the heads of so many Fijians—such men were not easily 
kept quiet. Complaints were rife wherever Tongamen 
resided, how they plundered the natives, and how, by 
intimidation, they forced the weaker chiefs to behave 
