38 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
used, there was reason to apprehend he had been 
murdered. 
Assisted by two or three natives, Mr. Bicknell 
and Mr. Nott dug a grave in a spot near their 
dwelling on the north side of Matavai bay, which 
had been selected as a place of interment. On 
the evening of the 29th of November, 1799, 
Mr. Nott, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Eyre, and Mr. Bick¬ 
nell, bore his remains to the grave, where 
Mr. Harris read the xcth Psalm, and offered up 
an appropriate prayer to Almighty God. The cir¬ 
cumstances of his death were truly affecting, and 
the feelings of the Missionaries such as it would be 
in vain to attempt to describe. They have since 
learned that he was murdered; and some of them 
have also regretted, that, after his separation, 
kindness and friendly intercourse were not con¬ 
tinued, which might perhaps, without compromise 
of character, have been consistently maintained. 
Pom are, considering himself the protector of the 
Missionaries, though he did not appear to think 
he had been murdered, yet proposed, if it appeared 
to the survivors that such had been the fact, to 
destroy the inhabitants of the district; and so 
much did many of the latter fear such an event, 
that they fled to the mountains. The Missionaries, 
considering that in such retaliation the innocent 
would suffer with the guilty, interposed, and pre¬ 
vailed upon the king to spare the district, but to 
punish the guilty whenever they might be dis¬ 
covered. 
Scarcely were the remains of Mr. Lewis con¬ 
signed to the silent grave, when an event occurred, 
which again reduced the number of this already 
weakened band. The Betsy of London, a letter of 
marque, arrived with a Spanish brig her prize, 
