68 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
lowers, and to animate them by his example, 
usually labouring with his people, and planting 
with his own hands many of the trees. 
To the mission families he was uniformly kind. 
Shortly before his death, he recommended them to 
the protection of his son; though the more he 
understood the chief object of their pursuit, the 
greater aversion he seemed to manifest to it. To 
the favour of the gods he considered himself in¬ 
debted for the aggrandisement of his person and 
family ; and if the Missionaries would have allowed 
the claims of Oro or Tane to have received an 
equal degree of attention to that which they re¬ 
quired for Jehovah, or Jesus Christ, Pomare would 
readily have admitted them; but when required to 
renounce his dependence upon the idols of his 
ancestors, and to acknowledge Jehovah alone as 
the true God, he at once rejected their message. 
He was justly considered as the principal support 
of the idolatry of his country. In patronizing the 
idols, and adhering to all the requirements of the 
priests, &c. he appears to have been influenced by 
the constant apprehension of the anger of his gods. 
Teu, his father, was a Tahitian prince ; his mother 
was a native of Raiatea ; he was born in the dis¬ 
trict of Pare; and at the time of his death, which 
took place on the 3d of September, 1803, was 
between fifty and sixty years of age. 
In the circumstances attending the formation of 
his character, and in the commencement, progress, 
and result of his public career, there was a striking 
resemblance between Pomare, the first king of 
that name in Tahiti, and his contemporary, Tame- 
hameha, the first king of the Sandwich Islands. 
Both rose from a comparatively humble station in 
society, to the supreme authority; both owed their 
