POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
Ill 
march through the district to attack their enemies 
beyond Matavai^ and^ in the event of refusal^ declared 
their intention of forcing a passage with the club and 
the spear. The refugees from the conquered districts 
had already sheltered themselves under the protection of 
the Missionaries and their companions^ and they would 
have fallen a sacrifice to the cruelty of their enemies^ 
had they been allowed to pass through the district. 
The English^ therefore^ acceded to the first proposition. 
The Atehuruans ratified the treaty^ returned to their own 
land, and thus aiforded the foreigners at Matavai, and 
those under their protection, a short respite from the 
dread of immediate attack. Had the Missionaries been 
the only Englishmen residing on the island at the time, 
it is most probable the victors would not have been 
checked by them in their career of conquest. They 
would have prosecuted their march of destruction ; and, 
as the Missionaries remark, they must have retreated, or 
fallen a sacrifice to their fury. 
Flushed with success, and animated with the belief 
that the god fought with them, the rebels, having 
offered in sacrifice the bodies of the slain, and united in 
their confederacy the districts of Papara, and the whole 
of the south-west side of the larger peninsula, cross¬ 
ed the isthmus, marched at once to Tautira, and 
attacked the king and Pomare; who, ever since their 
arrival with the idol they had seized in Atehuru, had 
been engaged in offering human sacrifices, and, by other 
acts of worship, propitiating the favour of Oro. The 
rebels conducted their expedition with so much secrecy 
and despatch, that the king was taken by surprise. 
Notwithstanding this, the assailants were, in their first 
onset, repulsed; but, renewing their attack in the night, 
