POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
81 
teen months after the departure of the Duff. The attack 
was made at daybreak^ in the western border of Ma- 
tavai: four individuals were killed^ and afterwards 
offered by the priest to his deity. The inhabitants, 
unable to withstand the young king and his ally, aban¬ 
doned their plantations and their dwellings, and fled for 
their lives. The invaders divided the district, and the 
priest, taking possession of the eastern side, revelled in 
all the profligacy and insolence of plunder and destruc¬ 
tion. His triumph, however, was but short. Pomare 
sent privately to Idia directions for his assassination. 
After two or three solicitations from his mother, Otu, 
though in closest alliance with him, consented to his 
death, and he was murdered by one of Idia's men, at the 
foot of One-tree Hill, as he was on his way to Pare, on the 
3d of December 1798^ ten days after the invasion of 
Matavai. 
The Missionaries sought an early opportunity to un¬ 
fold to the rulers of the nation the objects of their Mis¬ 
sion, and, after several disappointments, held a public 
interview with Pomare, Otu, and other principal chiefs, 
in which they stated, as distinctly as possible, through 
the medium of Peter Hagerstien, as interpreter, their 
design in coming to reside amongst them ; viz. to 
instruct them in useful arts, teach them reading and 
writing, and make known to them the only true God, 
and the way to happiness in a future state; urging 
the discontinuance of human sacrifices, and the aboli¬ 
tion of infanticide. As an inducement to compliance 
with this last request, they offered to build a house for the 
accommodation of the children that might be spared, 
whom they promised to nurse with attention equal to 
that which they paid to their own. The chiefs and peo- 
M 
