POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
L33 
where they had intended to have addressed the people. 
Instead of listening with attention_, the natives seemed 
only irritated by beings as they said^ mocked with pro¬ 
mises of advantage from a God by whom so much 
suffering had been inflicted. Under these circumstances, 
their distresses were somewhat relieved by the arrival 
of Mr. Warner; who, after due preparation, had been 
sent from England in the capacity of surgeon to the 
Mission, which he joined on the 12th of May, 1807* 
The strength, however, which his arrival added to tlieir 
establishment, was somewhat counterbalanced by tlie 
removal of Mr. Youl, one of those who had arrived in 
the Royal Admiral, and who departed in the vessel that 
conveyed Mr. Warner to Tahiti. 
In the month of June, the flame of war was rekindled 
in Taiarabu, and the district of Atehuru, where the 
king’s party suddenly attacked the inhabitants; and, 
after killing upwards of one hundred, including their 
principal chiefs, covered the country with all the 
murder and desolation that usually attended the march 
of the infuriated bands through the territories of those 
who were too weak to oppose their progress. Having 
driven to the mountains such as had escaped the 
slaughter in the assault, plundered their houses, and 
afterwards reduced them to ashes, the king took the 
bodies of the slain on board his fleet; and, sailing to 
Tautira, offered them in sacrifice to Oro. ^ 
Towards the close of the year, the Mission sustained a 
heavy loss in the death of Mr. Jefferson. He was one 
of those Missionaries that arrived in the ship Duff; he 
had borne ^Hhe heat and burden of the day,” and finished 
his course on the 25th of Sept., 1807. He was a man of 
intelligence and ability, possessing extraordinary de- 
