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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
pose of receiving, with the children of the Missionaries, a 
systematic English education. His disposition was 
affectionate, his progress encouraging, and he promised 
fair to gain a correct acquaintance with the English lan¬ 
guage, which, had he lived, by giving him the key to all 
the stores of knowledge contained in it, would have con¬ 
ferred on him a most commanding influence among the 
people, over whom the providence of God had made him 
king. So far as his faculties were developed, they were 
not inferior to those of European children at the same 
age, but he was soon removed by death. 
Being attacked with a complaint that passed through 
the islands about the middle of December, 1826, he was 
immediately conveyed to his mother’s residence in Pare, 
where he lingered till the eleventh of January, 1827^ when 
he died in Mr. Orsmond’s arms. His mother and 
other friends standing by, when they saw him actually 
in the agonies of death, were so affected that they 
could not bear to look upon his struggles, but cast a 
cloth over Mr. Orsmond and the dying child he held in 
his arms; they removed it in a few minutes, and found 
his spirit had fled. 
He was Pomare’s only son, and the sole child of his 
surviving widow. A daughter of Pomare II. by a second 
wife, whose name is Aimata, and who is about sixteen 
years of age, being his only surviving child, has succeeded 
to the government: she was married some years ago to a 
young chief of Tahaa, to whom her father had given his 
own name, so that Pomare is still the regal name. Her 
character, perhaps, is yet scarcely formed, but the Mis¬ 
sionaries speak very favourably of her principles and 
conduct, and hope she will prove a blessing to the nation, 
and a nursing-mother to the cause of Christianity. 
