POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
335 
according to their own confessions, or the united testi¬ 
mony of their friends and neighbours, had inhumanly 
consigned to an untimely grave, four, or six, or eight, or 
ten children, and some even a greater number. I feel 
hence the painful and humiliating conviction which I 
have ever been reluctant to admit, forced upon me from 
the testimony of the natives themselves, the propor¬ 
tion of children found by the first Missionaries, and 
existing in the population at the time of our arrival, that 
during the generations immediately preceding the sub¬ 
version of paganism, not less than two-thirds of the 
children were massacred. A female, who was frequently 
accustomed to wash the linen for our family, had thus 
cruelly destroyed five or six. Another, who resided 
very near us, had been the mother of eight, of which 
only one had been spared. But I will not multiply in¬ 
stances, which are numerous in every island, and of the 
accounts of which the recollection is most distinct, I 
am desirous to establish beyond doubt the belief of the 
practice, as it is one which, from every consideration, is 
adapted to awaken in the Christian mind liveliest 
gratitude to the Father of mercies, strongest convic¬ 
tions of the miseries inseparable from idolatry, tenderest 
commiseration for the heathen, and most vigorous efforts 
for the amelioration of their wretchedness. 
The universality of the crime was no less painful 
and astonishing than its repeated perpetration by the 
same individuals. It does not appear to have been 
confined to any rank or class in the community; and 
though it was one of the indispensable regulations of 
the Areoi society, enforced on the authority of those 
gods whom they were accustomed to consider as the 
founders of their order, it was not peculiar to them 
