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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES, 
and improve the condition of the people, and his adherents 
were always well furnished with all that the island 
afforded. The uncultivated sides of the mountains, and 
the low flat sandy parts of the shore, seldom tilled 
by the natives, were reclaimed by his industry; and 
many extensive groves of cocoa-nut trees in Tahiti and 
Eimeo, which the inhabitants say were planted by 
Pomare, remain as monuments of his industry, and 
yield no small emolument to their present proprietors. 
In all these labours he endeavoured to infuse his 
own spirit into the bosom of his followers, and to 
animate them by his example, usually labouring with 
his people, and planting with his own hands many of 
the trees. 
To the Mission families he was uniformly kind. 
Shortly before his death, he recommended them to the 
protection of his son; though the more he understood 
the chief object of their Mission, the greater aversion he 
seemed to manifest to it. To the favour of the gods he 
considered himself indebted for all the aggrandisement 
of his person and family; and if the Missionaries would 
have allowed the claims of Oro or Tane to have received an 
equal degree of attention to that which they required for 
Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, Pomare would readily have 
admitted them; but when required to renounce his 
dependence upon the idols of his ancestors, and to 
acknowledge Jehovah alone as the true God, he at once 
rejected their message. He was justly considered as the 
principal support of the idolatry of his country. In 
patronizing the idols, and adhering to all the requirements 
of the priests, &c. he appears to have been influenced by 
the constant apprehension of the anger of his gods, 
Teu, his father, was a Tahitian prince; his mother was a 
