220 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
evidently unfavourable to peace. I mingled my 
entreaties with theirs, but it was of no avail. His 
own men, finding he could not be deterred unless 
by violence, desisted; while a number of young 
fellows, like-minded with himself, urging him to 
depart, he hastened after the party that had gone 
to Parea. As soon as Hautia, the deputy-gover¬ 
nor of the island, heard it, he gave orders for the 
people to prepare to go, and fetch them back the 
next day. 
On the following morning, accompanied by 
Messrs. Darling and Bourn, I went down to the 
settlement about sunrise, to witness the proceed¬ 
ings of an assembly convened to consider the 
events of the preceding day. It was one of the 
most interesting of the kind I ever attended. The 
public council was held in the open air, on the 
sea-beach, in the shade of several tamanu-trees, 
that grew in front of the governor’s house. Hautia 
sat on a rustic native seat, near the trunk of the 
principal tree. The chiefs of the different districts, 
and the magistrates, were assembled near him, 
while most of the people of the settlement had 
gathered round, to witness their proceedings, full 
of anxiety for the result. 
It appeared from the declarations of several, 
that the conduct of the young men, and especially 
the chiefs’ sons, had not proceeded from any 
desire to ornament their persons with tatau, but 
from an impatience of the restraint the laws im¬ 
posed ; that they had merely selected that as a 
means of shewing their hostility to those laws, and 
their determination not to regard them; that if 
they might be allowed, without molestation, to 
follow their own inclinations, no disturbance of 
the present sort would be attempted; but that if 
