142 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. 
When the queen went over to Tahiti, Pomare 
undertook a journey round Eimeo, purposing, by 
conversation with the chiefs of the different dis¬ 
tricts, to inform them of the nature of Christianity, 
endeavour to induce them to receive it, and re¬ 
commend it to the people. He was at first 
ridiculed in this undertaking; for many of the 
chiefs and landed proprietors in Eimeo were not 
strongly attached to his family ; they were, more¬ 
over, at that time the firm supporters of idolatry, 
and considered his neglect of the gods as the cause 
of his own troubles, and the war then desolating 
Tahiti. By some of the natives, this journey has 
been regarded as a measure of policy adopted by 
the king, to prevent the chiefs of the eastern part 
of Eimeo joining his enemies in Tahiti, and to 
attach them to his own interest. It has also been 
stated, that in his reception and treatment of the 
refugees, he was not acting more from the dictates 
of his own generosity, than from the suggestions of 
the chief heathen prophet of the nation, who had 
engaged, provided his advice was followed, to 
restore to him the dominion in Tahiti. This priest, 
it is stated by some of the natives, proposed to go 
to Tahiti to excite persecution against the Chris¬ 
tians, and procure their banishment; then to stir 
up war among the idolatrous insurgents them¬ 
selves, until their numbers should be so diminished 
as to render them unable to withstand the force 
which Pomare, by uniting the refugees with his 
adherents in Eimeo, and his auxiliaries from the 
Leeward Islands, might bring against them. By 
