418 
VOYAGE OP THE POTOMAC. 
[June, 
alone were different. But all this was of no avail. The natives 
were forced from their houses of worship by native soldiers, ordered 
by authority ! 
Things became serious. The natives wished still to attend the 
new-comers ; but this was prohibited. The missionaries were 
ordered to depart ; and finally were compelled, with threats of 
personal violence, to leave their labours and the island, and go on 
board a little rickety vessel, belonging to one of the chiefs, in 
which they were conveyed to the coast of California, and there 
inhumanly set on shore, in a barren spot, and distant from any 
settlement ! 
Is this, then, the fruit of Christianity, in a place where we had 
reason to believe so much good had been done by the mild in- 
fluence of missionary labours — ;where religion, and freedom, and 
knowledge had taken such deep root? where the gospel trumpet 
had been sounded, and the heathen had listened to its joyful notes ? 
This is not all. The California missionaries were not only 
forcibly compelled to forego all their benevolent intentions and 
labours of love, but, at the time of the Potomac's arrival at 
Oahu, some forty natives, men, women, and children, were con- 
fined at hard labour, on a coral wall which was then erecting, 
of several miles in extent, in the country, and were not allowed 
to visit the town. One woman was seen, with an infant on her 
back, bearing large stones in her arms for building this wall ! 
And this punishment was inflicted because they were Catholics, 
and would not change their religion for that of the missionaries of 
the island ! " We saw a man casting out devils in thy name, and 
we forbade him, because he follow eth not us !" 
At the conference previously alluded to between Commodore 
Downes and the authorities, this subject was introduced ; when 
the commodore, in a mild, though decisive tone, explained to the 
chiefs and queen regent, that in England, in the United States, 
and other countries, persons were not punished for their religious 
opinions ; and that Catholic countries might not view with indif- 
ference such cruel treatment of Catholics ; that a bitter spirit of 
persecution was not sanctioned in any enlightened country, and 
ought at once to be abolished. 
There were few present at this interesting conference who will 
soon forget the apparent reluctance with which Mr. Bingham, 
