POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
It is probable that at that period public ordinances 
were altogether discontinued. The first public or open 
indications of the change^ were given at a time which, 
according to human probabilities, was but little favourable 
to such events. The Missionaries had but recently 
returned from their banishment, and the work of instruc¬ 
tion had scarcely been resumed ; it was the beginning, 
and but the beginning, of a second attempt to plant the 
gospel in those islands. The Missionaries considering 
the whole of the twelve years spent in Tahiti as so much 
time lost, were commencing afresh their endeavours on 
another island, and could hardly expect that at this 
time, after such a protracted delay, God would at once 
prosper their undertaking. 
The circumstances of the nation, and of the Mission, 
were by no means favourable to such a change. It was 
not a time of peace, and leisure, but of protracted, obsti¬ 
nate, and barbarous war—the king and his adherents 
were in exile, alternately agitated by the entreaties of 
their auxiliaries to attempt to retrieve their affairs by a 
descent upon Tahiti, or expecting their retreat to be in¬ 
vaded by their audacious and rebellious conquerors. It was 
a period of humiliation, darkness, and distress; while the 
population of Tahiti itself was torn by factions, and 
desolated by wars, that threatened its extinction. Their 
teachers were not much more favourably circumstanced. 
Few in number, compared with what they had been when 
they maintained their former station in Matavai, and 
suffering under the heaviest domestic bereavements ; pre¬ 
vented by personal indisposition, and other circum¬ 
stances, from engaging, either very frequently or ex¬ 
tensively, in the main work of instructing the people; 
their exertions, greatly to their own regret, were 
