168 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
and stronghold had long been here, as well as in 
the other islands, did not tamely surrender his 
dominions. The idolatrous chiefs and inhabitants 
took up arms, to defend the cause of the gods, and 
revenge the insult offered by the king Their 
efforts, however, were but as the ragings of an 
expiring monster, whose fangs were broken, and 
whose heart had been pierced. The idolaters were 
defeated, and afterwards treated with the same 
clemency and lenient conduct which the Christian 
conquerors in Tahiti had manifested, and Chris¬ 
tianity was firmly established. The vanquished, 
however, though spared and liberated by the gene¬ 
rosity of Tamatoa, shewed themselves unworthy of 
the kindness with which they had been treated, by 
still talking of war on behalf of the idols. But as 
their numbers were few, their influence small, and 
as the great body of the people were doubtless 
favourable to the new order of things, hopes of 
success were comparatively faint, and no further 
attpmpf was made. 
The chiefs and greater part of the population of 
Tahaa, an island included in the same reef with 
Raiatea, imitated the example of Tamatoa and the 
Raiatean Christians, and destroyed their idols. 
The intelligent and enterprising chiefs of Bora- 
bora, Mai, and Tefaaora, were remarkably active in 
weakening the influence of the gods on the minds 
of the people under their government, undermining 
and subverting every species of idol-worship that 
prevailed in the islands. They succeeded, at 
length, in inducing the inhabitants, by their ex¬ 
ample and persuasion, to seek an acquaintance with 
that more excellent way revealed in the word of 
God, for whose worship they erected a convenient 
and respectable building. 
