POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
259 
to their dwellings ; and when they found their planta¬ 
tions uninjured, their property secure, their wives and 
children safe, they were utterly astonished. From the 
king they received assurances of pardon, and were not 
backward in unitedly tendering submission to his autho¬ 
rity, and imploring his forgiveness for having appeared 
in arms against him. Pomare was now, by the unani¬ 
mous will of the people, reinstated on the throne of his 
father, and raised to the supreme authority in his 
dominions. His clemency in the late victory still 
continued to be matter of surprise to all parties 
who had been his opponents. ^^Where,^’ said they, 
can the king and the Bure Atua have imbibed these 
new principles of humanity and forbearance ? We have 
done every thing in our power, by treachery, stratagem, 
and open force, to destroy him and his adherents; and 
yet, when the power was placed in his hand, victory on 
his side, we at his mercy, and his feet upon our necks, 
he has not only spared our lives, and the lives of our 
families, but has respected our houses and our property 1” 
While making these inquiries, many of them, doubtless, 
recollected the conduct of his father, in sending one 
night, when the warriors of Atehuru had gone over to 
Tautira, a body of men, who at midnight fell upon their 
defenceless victims, the aged relations, wives, and 
children of the Atehuruans, and in cold blood cruelly 
murdered upwards of one hundred helpless individuals, 
and this probably made the conduct of Pomare II. 
appear more remarkable. At length, they concluded tha4: 
it must be from the new religion, as they termed Chris - 
tianity; and hence they unanimously declared their de¬ 
termination to embrace it, and to place themselves 
and their families under the direction of its precepts. 
