POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
187 
of affairs^ as it regarded the success of their enterprise, 
the state of feeling bordering on hopeless despair, under 
which they departed from the islands, greatly augmented 
their distress. 
While in Port Jackson, they received affectionate and 
encouraging letters from the Society, and their friends 
in England, and communications of a most touching, 
yet confident kind, from the king, who invited their 
return. 
The way being thus opened for the resumption 
of their work, and depending on the blessing of God, 
they again embarked, in the autumn of 1811 , for the 
islands. During their absence, Pomare had remained 
excluded from his hereditary dominions, and in exile on 
the island of Eimeo. Whether the melancholy reverses 
he had experienced, and the depression of spirits con¬ 
sequent upon the dissolution of his government, and the 
desolation of his family, led him to doubt the truth of 
that system of idol-worship to which he had been 
devoted, and on which he had invariably relied for suc^ 
cess in every military, civil, and political enterprise, 
or whether the leisure it afforded for contemplation 
and inquiry, under the influence of these feelings, 
inclined him to reflect more seriously on the truth 
of those declarations he had often heard respecting 
the true God, and to consider his present condition as 
the chastening of that Being whom he had refused 
to acknowledge,^—it is impossible to determine; but 
these disastrous events had evidently subdued his 
spirit, and softened his heart. 
When the Missionaries who returned from Port Jack - 
son landed in Eimeo, the king received them with the 
warmest demonstrations of joy, Mr. and Mrs. Bicknell, 
