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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
determined to defend it; yet, if the property which the 
victors had there offered, and devoted as it were to the 
gods, was valuable and abundant, the besieged became 
dispirited, believing that the gods had left them, and gone 
to the party by whom these offerings had been made. 
They always imagined that the gods were influenced 
by motives similar to those which governed their own 
conduct I and when once the vanquished party imbibed 
the impression that the gods had forsaken them, their 
defence was comparatively feeble, and they consequently 
fell a prey to their enemies, who were often indebted 
more to the superstitious apprehensions of their foes, 
than to their own skill or power. 
If the conquered party surrendered at discretion, their 
land and property were divided by the conquerors, and the 
captives either murdered, reduced to slavery, or reserved 
for sacrifices when the gods required human victims. 
The bodies of such as were killed in their forts, were 
treated with the same indignity as those slain in the 
field; part of the bodies was eaten by the priests, the rest 
piled up in heaps on the sea-coast, where the effects of 
decomposition have been so offensive, that the people 
have forborne to fish in the adjacent parts of the sea. On 
the contrary, when neither party had been subdued, and, 
by intimation from the gods or any other cause, one 
party desired peace, an ambassador was sent with a flag 
of truce, which was usually of native cloth, a bunch of 
the sacred mero, &c. and proposals of peace. If the 
other party were favourable, an interview followed 
between the leaders, attended by the priests and national 
orators. 
They usually sat in council on the ground, either 
under a shady grove, or on the sandy beach. The orators 
