NATIVE SUSPICIONS, 319 
several houses on the eastern side of the settle¬ 
ment, and entered into conversation with the 
people on the subject of Missionaries coming to 
reside at Waiakea, In general, they approved, 
saying they had dark minds, and needed instruc¬ 
tion. Some, however, seemed to doubt the pro¬ 
priety of foreigners coming to reside permanently 
among them. They said, they had heard that in 
several countries, where foreigners had inter¬ 
mingled with the original natives, the latter had 
soon disappeared: and, should Missionaries come 
to live at Waiakea, perhaps the land would ulti¬ 
mately become theirs, and the kanaka maore 
(aborigines) cease to be its occupiers. I told 
them, that had been the case in some countries; 
but that the residence of Missionaries among 
them, so far from producing it, was designed, and 
eminently calculated, to prevent a consequence so 
melancholy. At the same time I remarked, that 
their sanguinary wars, their extensive and cruel 
practice of infanticide, their frequent intoxication, 
and their numerous diseases, partly gendered by 
vicious habits, had, according to their own ac¬ 
count, diminished the population of the island 
three-fourths within the last forty years ; and, 
from the destructive operation of these causes, 
there was every reason to fear the Hawaiian 
people would soon be annihilated, unless some 
remedy was applied. No remedy, I added, was 
so efficacious as instruction and civilization; and, 
above all, the principles and doctrines of the bible, 
which they could not become acquainted with, 
but by the residence of Missionaries among them. 
Such, I informed them, w T as the opinion of the 
friends of Missions, who, anxious to ameliorate 
their wretched condition, preserve from oblivion 
