140 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
court-houses, &c., in eighteen articles. After 
reading and explaining the several particulars, he 
asked the chiefs if they approved of them. They re¬ 
plied aloud, “We agree to them—we heartily agree 
to them.” The king then addressed the people, 
and desired them, if they approved of the laws, to 
signify the same by holding up their right hands. 
This was unanimously done, with a remarkable 
rushing noise, owing to thousands of arms being 
lifted at once. When Pomare came to the 
law on rebellion, stirring up war, &c. he seemed 
inclined to pass it over, but after a while pro¬ 
ceeded. At the conclusion of that article, Tati 
was not content with signifying his approbation in 
the usual way only, but, standing up, he called in 
a spirited manner to all his people to lift up their 
hands again, even both hands, setting himself an 
example, which was universally followed. Thus all 
the articles were passed and approved. 
The public business of the day was closed by 
Mr. Henry’s offering a prayer unto Him by whom 
princes decree judgment; and the people retired to 
their respective dwellings. 
Pomare subsequently intimated his intention of 
appropriating Palmerston’s Island as a place of 
banishment for Tahitian convicts, and proposed to 
the Missionaries to publish his request that no 
vessel should remove any who might be thus 
exiled. The laws which the king read to the 
people were written by himself, and were the first 
written code that ever existed in the islands; he 
afterwards wrote out, in a fair, legible, and excel¬ 
lent hand, a copy for the press. Printed copies 
were distributed among the people, but the original 
manuscript, in the king’s hand-writing, signed by 
himself, is in the possession of the London Mis- 
