186 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES, 
perly nor unacceptably introduced in this place^ 
where our Missionary life may be said to have com¬ 
menced. It was on my first arrival in Eimeo, that the 
accounts of this work^ although partial, produced the 
greatest effect on my own mind, and left an impression 
that was only deepened by subsequent details from the 
natives themselves; and which, through whatever scenes 
I may yet pass, will never be effaced. I would, how¬ 
ever, only offer it as a substitute for the more explicit 
statement which my predecessors in the islands might 
render; and if, by attracting their attention to the 
subject, I should induce them to furnish such a deside¬ 
ratum, my attempts will not have been altogether in vain. 
Should this be elicited, they will confer no ordinary 
benefit on the cause of Missions, and afford great satis¬ 
faction to the Christian world. 
In the year 1809, Mr. Nott alone remained with 
the king and the people in the island of Eimeo; 
the other Missionaries, with the exception of 
Mr. Hayward, removed from Huahine to Port Jack- 
son. Although the gospel had been fully, faithfully, 
and constantly preached, for some years in Tahiti, 
occasionally in most of the other islands, and many of 
the people had imbibed a tolerably clear speculative 
knowledge of the leading doctrines taught in the sacred 
volume, yet there was no individual on whom they could 
look, as having been benefited by their instructions—^no 
one whose mind was savingly enlightened, or whose 
heart had experienced any moral change. Discouraging 
as these circumstances were, the Missionaries would not 
have abandoned their station, but for the destruction with 
which the civil war, and the defeat of the king, seriously 
threatened them; and, in addition to this darkened aspect 
