36 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
vaders divided the district, and the priest, taking 
possession of the eastern side, revelled in all the 
profligacy and insolence of plunder and destruc¬ 
tion. His triumph, however, was but short. 
Pomare sent privately to Idia directions for his 
assassination. After two or three solicitations 
from his mother, Otu, the young king, though in 
closest alliance with him, consented to his death, 
and he was murdered by one of Idia’s men, at the 
foot of One-tree Hill, as he was on his way to Pare, 
on the 3d of December 1798, ten days after the 
invasion of Matavai. 
This event gave a new aspect to political affairs 
in the island, and appeared to unite in one interest 
Otu and Pomare his father. The inhabitants of 
Matavai left their places of retreat, and, having 
presented their peace-offering, re-occupied their 
lands. The Missionaries resumed their attempts 
to instruct the natives, but found the acqui¬ 
sition of the language so difficult, and the 
insensibility of the people so great, that they 
were exceedingly discouraged. Some of the 
natives, however, were led to inquire how it was 
that Cook, Vancouver, Bligh, and other early 
visitors, had never told them any of those things 
which they heard from the teachers now residing 
with them. 
Towards the close of the year 1799, the Mis¬ 
sionaries were called to the melancholy duty of 
conveying to the silent grave, under very distress¬ 
ing circumstances, Mr. Lewis, one of their number, 
and the first Missionary who had terminated his 
life on the shores of Tahiti. He landed from the 
ship Duff in 1797, continued to labour with his 
companions, respected and useful, until about 
three months after the departure of the Nautilus 
