334 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
worse than brutal insensibility, or with vaunting satis¬ 
faction at the triumph of their customs over the per¬ 
suasions of their teachers. 
In their earliest public negociations with the king 
and the chiefs, who constituted the government of the 
island, the Missionaries had enjoined, from motives of 
policy, as well as humanity and a regard to the law of 
God, the abolition of this cruel practice. The king 
Pomare acknowledged that he believed it was not right; 
that Captain Cook, for whom they entertained the 
highest respect, had told him it ought not to be 
allowed 5 and that for his part he was willing to discon¬ 
tinue it. These, however, were bare professions 5 for 
his own children were afterwards murdered, as well as 
those of his subjects. 
In point of number, the disproportion between the 
infants spared and those destroyed, was truly distress¬ 
ing. It was not easy to learn exactly what this dispro¬ 
portion was 3 but the first Missionaries published it as 
their opinion, that not less than two-thirds of the 
children were murdered by their own parents. Subse¬ 
quent intercourse with the people, and the affecting 
details many have given since their reception of Chris¬ 
tianity, authorize the adoption of the opinion as correct. 
The first three infants, they observed, were frequently 
killed 5 and in the event of twins being born, both 
were rarely permitted to live. In the largest families 
more than two or three children were seldom spared, 
while the numbers that were killed were incredible. 
The very circumstance of their destroying, instead of 
nursing their children, rendered their offspring more 
numerous than it would otherwise have been. We 
have been acquainted with a number of parents, who. 
