came up to the hatch for the sake of the light, to mend his pen. Looking up he saw Mr. Dixon, who was left in command, standing on a gun, and endeavouring, by signs, to prevent more of the natives from coming on board. Immediately they set up a loud cry, and one of them knocked him down with a club. Mariner turned about to run toward the gun-room, when a savage caught him by the hand; he disengaged himself, reached the gun-room, and finding the cooper there, they fled to the magazine, where, after a short consultation, they came to the resolution of revenging their comradės and procuring for themselves an easy death by blowing up the vessel. With this purpose the lad went back to the gun-room for flint and steel; but the boarding pikes had been thrown down the scuttle upon the arm-chest: he could not remove them without making a noise, which the savages would have heard, and therefore he returned to the magazine. The cooper was in great distress at the apprehension of immediate death:--Mariner, with a brave feeling, proposed that they should go upon deck and be killed at once while their enemies were hot with slaughter,-rather than be subjected to cooler cruelties. Accordingly he led the way, and seeing the Sandwicher, Tooi Tooi, and one of the chiefs in the cabin, lifted off the hatch, jumped into the cabin, presented his open hands to the Sandwicher, and addressing him by a word of friendly salutation among those islanders, asked if he meant to kill him, and said he was ready to die. Tooi Tooi promised him that he should not be hurt, for the chiefs were in possession of the ship, and taking him and the cooper under his protection, led them upon deck toward one of the chiefs who had conducted the enterprize.

A more frightful spectacle can scarcely be conceived than the deck presented-a 'short squab' naked savage, about fifty years of age, sat upon the companion, with a seaman's jacket soaked in blood thrown over one shoulder, and his club, spattered with blood and brains, upon the other. A paralytic motion of one eye and one side of the mouth increased the frightfulness of his appearance. There were two and twenty dead bodies upon the deck, perfectly naked, laid side by side, and so dreadfully battered about the head that scarcely any of them could be recognized. A man counted them and reported their number, after which they were immediately thrown overboard. The savages were satisfied with their success, and abstained from any superfluous murders. They had spared two of the crew, and detaining the cooper on board they sent Mariner on shore under charge of a petty chief, who stript him of his shirt upon the way. The boy went with a sort of desperate indifference, prepared for whatever might befal him. Brown was lying dead upon the beach,-and three of the mutineers were stretched in the same condition near a fire, where the natives were about to bake A 2

some

some hogs. They led Mariner away and stript him of his trowsers, exposing him thus naked to the sun, which blistered his skin shockingly. Some of the natives came up every now and then to examine him, and give scope to the cruel propensities of perverted human nature. They spat upon him, threw sticks and cocoa-shells at him which cut his head in several places, and led him about as fast as the soreness of his bare feet would enable him to walk. The first who took compassion upon him was a woman, who happening to pass by gave him an apron, with which he was permitted to cover himself. Weary at length with their brutal mockery his persecutors went into a hut to drink cava, and made him sit down in the corner, it being disrespectful to stand in the presence of a superior. While they were regaling themselves a man entered in haste and took him away: Finow, the king of the island, seeing the boy on board, had taken a liking to him; he fancied him to be the captain's son or perhaps a young chief of consequence in his own country, and had given orders to spare his life whatever other blood it might be necessary to shed in seizing the vessel.

When the poor boy was brought before Finow, foot sore, covered with dirt, his head wounded in many places and his skin blistered by the sun, the women who belonged to this savage chief uttered a general cry of compassion, and beat their breasts at seeing him. Finow put his nose to the boy's forehead,-which is a mark of friendly salutation; he was sent to wash himself at a pond, and was then anointed all over with sandal-wood oil, which alleviated the pain of his wounds and refreshed him greatly; a mat was given him to lie down, and being exhausted with fatigue and wretchedness he presently fell fast asleep. About fourteen of the Port au Prince's crew had escaped from the massacre, they were employed to bring the ship close in shore; her carronades and powder were landed for Finow's use, and she was then burnt for her iron-work. Tooi Tooi advised Finow to put all the Englishmen to death, lest when another ship arrived they should tell their countrymen what had happened, and thus produce a dreadful vengeance. Fortunately for them Finow was too much a savage to comprehend the policy of this advice: what he had done appeared to him completely justifiable upon the ground of his own interest, and Mr. Mariner says, he thought that white people were of too generous and forgiving a temper to take revenge. He gave these men leave to build a vessel, and endeavour to reach Norfolk island; but happening to notch one of their axes at the work, he refused them the use of the tools any longer: all hopes of escape were therefore removed except from the arrival of some vessel; and resigning themselves to their fate they adapted themselves as well as they could to the manners of the country.

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Accounts of the Tonga Islands.

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As Mr. Mariner's adventures are from this time connected with the history of the Tonga Islands, Dr. Martin has here briefly represented their then existing state. The missionaries, in 1797, found these islands in as high a state of cultivation and beauty as they appeared to their first discoverer, Tasman, and to Captain Cook, who thought himself transported into the most fertile places of Europe. There was not,' says this great navigator, 'an inch of waste ground: the roads occupied no more space than was absolutely necessary; the fences did not take up above four inches each, and even this was not wholly lost, for in many were planted some useful trees or plants. It was everywhere the same; change of place altered not the scene: nature, assisted by a little art, no where appears in more splendour than here.' In 1799 a revolution took place, and from that time these islands have been almost uninterruptedly a theatre of horrors.

Toogoo Ahoo,* king, or, according to the native title, How, of the Tonga islands, is represented by Mr. Mariner as a man of that capricious and wanton cruelty which the possession of unbounded power produces in an evil disposition. On one occasion he gave orders, which were instantly obeyed, that twelve of his cooks, who were always in waiting at his public ceremony of drinking cava, should undergo the amputation of their left arms, merely to distinguish them from other men, and for the vanity of rendering himself singular by this extraordinary exercise of his authority.' No act of frantic wickedness is incredible in a tyrant,- -nor any act of fiendish cruelty in a savage: this man was both. His uncle, Finow Loogalalla, (or Lukolallo, as it is written in the missionary voyage,) father of the Finow whose history Mr. Mariner records, had expected to succeed to the Howship instead of his nephew; chagrin at the disappointment was thought to have shortened his life, and the missionaries repeat a report that with his dying breath he charged his sons to kill their cousin Toogoo Ahoo. Mr. Mariner gives a patriotic colouring to the action,-but it was the act of savage against savage, one merciless barbarian against another. Toobo Neuha took the lead in the conspiracy: he and his brother Finow waited on the How with a present,-thus they obtained a pretext for remaining that night, with their followers, near his house. Their followers were stationed round it to dispatch all who might attempt to escape, and Toobo Neuha entered with his axe to commit the murder. The missionary (who in the subsequent war contracted a guilt ten-fold more damning than his apostasy) says, that he ascertained his victim in the darkness by the perfumed oil on his head which is used only by the principal chief. To have killed

The missionaries, who generally use the D where Mr. Mariner places a T, call bim Dugonagaboola, thinking this to be his title. His name they write Tooga Howe. him

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him sleeping would not have gratified the passion, whatever it was, which instigated the deed. He struck him on the face with his hand, and as he started from a deep sleep at the blow, exclaimed, 'Tis I, Toobo Neuha! and drove down the deadly weapon. He snatched up a child of three years old whom the slain chief had adopted, and rescued him from the massacre,—but the most beautiful women of Tonga, the wives and mistresses of the How, were butchered by his followers! Dr. Martin says, that as he entered the house, and saw them sleeping on either hand, perfumed with sandal-wood and their necks strung with wreaths of the freshest flowers, he could have wept over their fate- but the freedom of his country was at stake.' Such language is worse than nonsensical, and deserves to be severely reprehended. The freedom of Tonga! Supposing freedom had ever been thought of or dreamt of in these islands, or that any person there knew any thing about freedom, in what manner was it to be promoted by knocking out the brains of these innocent women? Was not the object of the chief accomplished by the single murder of the How? The murders which Dr. Martin makes his sentimental and patriotic savage lament, he might have prevented by a word;-the wickedness was gratuitous, a bonne-bouche for his followers, a little amusement to keep their hands in. Such are the dispositions of savage man!

Mr. Mariner has, undoubtedly, represented the character of the murdered How as he heard it described;-but his information came from the murderers and from their party. Mr. Pigott tells us, that the people of Aheefo, which was the How's particular district, warmly took up the cause of their chief,' and the missionaries say that the news of his murder flew through the country and seemed to fire every one with indignation and a desire of revenge. One of the chiefs, to express his abhorrence in the strongest manner, ordered the body of old Finow to be taken up and fixed upon a tree for public exposure, which was esteemed the greatest indignity that could be offered to his family. A battle ensued, which fires the imagination of Dr. Martin, and he describes it in a style of language that may be thought, he confesses, 'not very consistent with the sobriety of historical narration.' The style, indeed, is such as may merit the approbation of Sir John Sinclair, who has lately informed the public that the battle of Waterloo is finely described in Ossian as translated by the Rev. Dr. Ross. There is, however, a fine characteristic circumstance: a chief, by name Tooi Hala Fatai, who had been amusing himself with two hundred and fifty followers as ferocious as himself by engaging in the Feejee wars, and acquiring the execrable habits of those fiercer savages, returned at this time and joined Finow; he was very ill, and

believing

believing that the disease was incurable, rushed into the thickest of the enemy, and died, according to his purpose, in battle.

Dr. Martin says, that Finow summoned together the partizans of liberty, and that his enemies fled in all directions conquered by that arm which had delivered the country from a tyrant. His bombast about standing like a rock and rushing like a torrent is more tolerable than this abominable abuse of language. The consequence of his conduct was, that he found it expedient to retreat from Tonga and look to his own possessions. He secured his authority in the Hapai islands, after one battle, and put to death all his prisoners, some by the French fashion of a noyade as practised by the Jacobines at Nantes, and the Buonapartists at St. Domingo: they were taken out in canoes which were scuttled and sunk immediately, or tied hand and foot in old leaky vessels and left to sink gradually. Others were tied naked to trees or stakes, and left to perish by the scorching heat of the sun,-by the tortures which boys inflicted upon them,-for in this country boys are trained to cruelty, and by hunger. Those who were most fortunate were three or four days in dying; stronger frames endured more than a week in this dreadful state of suffering. Yet the sense of right and wrong has not wholly been effaced in this most inhuman people ever since these atrocious acts they believe that the groans of the victims are heard frequently by night. Dr. Martin says, no doubt this is the roaring of the distant surf, or of the sea in subterraneous caverns. But the roaring of the surf can be no new sound, and these things belong to the inner world which is in the mind of man, they are the echoes of conscience, and are, indeed, dreadful realities. The island of Vavaoo was given by Finow to his brother Toobo Neuha, who was to pay him an annual tribute: he himself reigned in the Hapai islands. Tonga, meantime, which had been in so flourishing and beautiful a state before the murder of its acknowledged sovereign, suffered all the miseries of anarchy and civil war. It was divided into several petty states-each at war with its neighbours, every party built a fort for itself, and Finow annually made a descent upon the island, attempting to reduce one or other of them, but they were so well fortified and intrenched that though several years had elapsed when Mr. Mariner arrived, he had not succeeded in taking or destroying one. The hope of obtaining means which might ensure his success seems to have been the chief motive for surprizing the Port au Prince. He now ordered Mr. Mariner and four of his companions to prepare for accompanying him in his annual expedition, and to get ready four twelve-pounder carronades. They collected as many of the shot as could be found, for the natives not being able to shape them for any common purpose had thrown them aside: they cut up sheet lead and made it

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into