192 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
shall the punishment be inflicted on such offender. If the 
king desire to mitigate the sentence, he may do so, but 
cannot increase it. 
The names of the judges, magistrates, and 
messengers, or police officers, for Huahine and 
Sir Charles Sander’s Island, follow this last regu¬ 
lation, and close the first official document issued 
by the government of these islands—and, next to 
the sacred writings, the most beneficial ever pro¬ 
mulgated among the people. 
I have endeavoured to give a correct and even 
servile translation of this important publication. 
The idiom and peculiar phraseology of the original, 
I have almost invariably retained, rather than 
sacrifice fidelity to improvement of style. In some 
respects I have wished that several enactments 
had been otherwise than they are; these parts, 
however, have not been omitted; and notwith¬ 
standing their imperfections, considering the cir¬ 
cumstances of the parties by whom they were 
framed, regarding them also as the first effort of 
their legislation as a Christian people, and the 
basis of their future civil institutions, they imbody 
all the great principles of national Security, per¬ 
sonal liberty, general order, public morals, and 
good government. And if no Solon or Lycurgus 
should appear among them, it is not too much to 
hope that, amidst the variety of character daily 
unfolded, and the means of improvement which 
the introduction of letters imparts, that political 
economy will not be neglected, but that legislators 
will arise, whose genius shall model and prepare 
such improvements in their system of jurispru¬ 
dence, as shall render it in every respect conducive 
to general prosperity and individual happiness. 
In the Tahitian and Raiatean codes, when first 
