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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
language to that individual^ and such was also used to 
others. His evident satisfaction was proportionate, 
when he perceived that Mr. and Mrs. Eyre, and five of 
the single Missionaries, resolved to continue in Tahiti. 
On the 29th of March, those Missionaries who 
intended to leave, bade their companions farewell; and, 
during the night of the 30th, sailed from Matavai, and 
proceeded to New South Wales. It is worthy of remark, 
that this event, so destructive to the strength of the 
Mission, crippling the efforts of its members, and 
spreading a cloud over their future prospects, resulted 
not from opposition to the efforts of the Missionaries, 
nor from any dispute between them and the priests 
or people, on subjects connected with the idolatry of 
the latter, but from their benevolent endeavours to 
serve those, whom purposes of commerce had brought 
to their shores, and whom adverse weather had reduced 
to circumstances of distress—a class of individuals 
whom the Missionaries, in those seas, have ever been 
ready to succour, but who, with some gratifying excep¬ 
tions, have not always honourably requited that kind¬ 
ness to which, in some instances, they have owed their 
own preservation. 
The decision of those who left Tahiti, may, to some, 
perhaps, appear premature, but it is not easy to form a 
correct estimate of the dangers to which they were 
exposed. They were well aware of many; but there 
were others, actually existing, of which they were then 
unconscious. Otu, called Pomare since his father’s 
death, has often, during the latter years of his life, told 
Mr. Nott, that after the departure of the Duff, frequently, 
when he has been carried on men’s shoulders round 
the residence of the Missionaries, Peter the Swede, who 
