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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
there was no feeling of hostility towards him and 
his adherents, yet they knew, by past experience, 
that no reliance was to be placed on such pro¬ 
fessions, and were not without daily fears that a 
hostile fleet might disembark an invading army on 
their shores. 
When the queen and her sister went over to 
Tahiti, Pomare undertook a journey round Eimeo, 
purposing to travel by short stages, and, by con¬ 
versation with the chiefs of the different districts, 
to inform them of the nature of Christianity, en¬ 
deavour to induce them to receive it, and recom¬ 
mend it to the people. He was not at first exempt 
from some degree of ridicule in this undertaking; 
for many of the chiefs and landed proprietors in 
Eimeo were by no means strongly attached to his 
family. They were, moreover, at that time the 
firm supporters of idolatry, and considered his 
neglect of the gods of his ancestors, as the cause 
of his own troubles, and the disastrous war then 
desolating Tahiti, his hereditary kingdom. He was 
not, however, discouraged ; and it must have been 
truly gratifying to have beheld him thus usefully 
engaged. 
Whatever may have been the influence of Chris¬ 
tian principles on his own mind, in subsequent 
periods of his life, Pomare certainly was employed 
by the Almighty as an instrument most effectually 
to promote the important process, at this time 
changing altogether the moral, civil, and religious 
aspect of the nation. The success that attended 
his endeavours appears from a letter which he 
addressed to the Missionaries while encamped in 
the district of Maatea, on the side of the island 
nearly opposite to that in which the European set¬ 
tlement stood. In this letter he stated his delight 
