CAUSES OF DEPOPULATION. 107 
arms, although their use in war has not perhaps 
rendered their engagements more cruel and mur¬ 
derous than when they fought hand to hand with 
club and spear—has most undoubtedly cherished, 
in those who possessed them, a desire for war, as a 
means of enlarging their territory, and augmenting 
their power. Pomare’s dominion would never have 
been so extensive and so absolute, but for the aid 
he derived, in the early part of his reign, from the 
mutineers of the Bounty, who attended him to 
battle with arms which they had previously learned 
to use with an effect, which his opponents could 
not resist. Subsequently, the hostile chieftains, 
having procured fire-arms, and succeeding in 
attaching to their interest European deserters from 
their ships, considered themselves, if not invincible, 
at least equal to their enemies, and sought every 
opportunity for engaging in the horrid work of 
accelerating the depopulation of their country. 
Destruction was the avowed design with which 
they commenced every war, and the principle of 
extermination rendered all their hostilities fatal to 
the vanquished party. 
Another cause most influential in the diminution 
of the Tahitian race, has been the introduction of 
the art of distillation, and the extensive use of 
ardent spirits. They had, before they were visited 
by our ships, a kind of intoxicating beverage called 
ava , but the deleterious effects resulting from its 
use were confined to a comparatively small portion 
of the inhabitants. The growth of the plant from 
which it was procured was slow; its culture re^- 
quired care ; it was usually tabued for the chiefs ; 
and the common people were as strictly prohibited 
from appropriating it to their own use, as the 
peasantry are in reference to game in England. 
