458 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
Important as this ^ange in the civil constitution was 
to all the great interests of the people, there were doubt¬ 
less many who were either insensible of the advantages 
that would accrue to themselves and their posterity, or 
were unable to appreciate their value. There were others, 
however, among different ranks in society, who thought 
and felt differently, and occasionally exhibited the high 
sense they entertained of natural and acknowledged 
rights, and the security they expected from the laws they 
had adopted. Many illustrations of this remark might 
be adduced, I shall only cite one that occurred in the 
island in which I resided. 
In the autumn of 1822, the queen of Tahiti, the widow 
of Pomare, visited Huahine. Her attendants, who fol¬ 
lowed in her train from Tahiti, requiring a piece of timber, 
she directed them to cut down a bread-fruit tree growing 
in the garden of a poor man on the opposite side of the 
bay, near which her own residence stood. Her orders 
were obeyed, and the tree was carried away. Teuhe, the 
owner of the spot on which it stood, returning in the 
evening to his cottage, saw the spoiler had been there; 
the stump was bleeding, and the boughs lay strewed 
around, but the stately trunk was gone. Informed by his 
neighbours that the queen’s men had cut it down, he 
repaired to the magistrate of the district, and lodged a 
complaint against her majesty the queen. The magistrate 
directed him to come to the place of public justice 
the following morning at sun-rise, and substantiate his 
charge : he afterwards sent his servant to the queen, and 
invited her attendance at the same hour. The next morn¬ 
ing, the Missionary residing there went down to witness 
the proceeding; and, as the sun rose above the horizon, 
Ori, the magistrate, was seen sitting in the open air. 
