become so mingled with what is European, that little profitable. knowledge will be derivable from them. In New Zealand, a novel and interesting scene lies open; the church missionary society have there set on foot their benevolent purposes. They begin by educating the children, and teaching their parents the mechanic arts!--but it is to be hoped that the civilized New Zealander, hereafter to be born, will have within his reach the authentic records of what his ancestors once were, that he may know the extent of his obligations to those of his fellow men who were the means of leading his forefathers out of the darkness of superstition, and out of the house of bondage. In referring to the "Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand, by John Liddiard Nicholas, Esq." it must be acknowledged, that much credit is certainly due to the author, who in a short visit of a few weeks, has been able to collect such a mass of interesting matter. Mr. Nicholas informs us, that " as Mr. Kendall," one of the missionaries, "is applying himself strictly to the study of the New Zealand language, it is probable he will furnish us in some time with a copious and enlarged account of it." While this is doing, it is to be hoped that the other parts of the history of the New Zealand intellect, as it is developed in their customs, laws, and superstitions, will not be forgotten. 27, Basinghall Street, 4th, March, 1818. J. MARTIN. INTRODUCTION. THE cluster of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, whose inhabitants constitute the subject of the present work, is that to which Captain Cook gave the epithet "Friendly :" his chart of the Friendly* islands however does not include Vavaoo, which he did not visit; and as this island is the largest, and now comparatively the most important of all those belonging to the same archipelago, which, in his time were under the same government, and still speak precisely the same language, and follow the same customs, we have thought it expedient to denote them all by one common name, which the natives themselves give them, viz. "Tonga," or, the Tonga Islands.† As I presume it would be unnecessary to offer any apologies for presenting to the public the following account of a people, of * He gave them this name on account of the apparent amicable disposition of the natives towards him; but in reality their intention was to massacre him and his friends, and take the two ships, as they did afterwards the Port au Prince. See page 305. † These islands, therefore, consist of the island of Tonga, which gives name to the whole, the cluster called the Hapai islands, and the island of Vavaoo. See the Map. whose government, religion, customs, and language, so little has hitherto been published,* I shall proceed at once to give a simple statement of the circumstances which first gave rise to it, and the authority under which it has been conducted. In the year 1811, I accidentally heard that Mr. William Mariner, the bearer of a letter from the East Indies to one of my connexions in London, had been a resident at the Friendly Islands during the space of four years; and, my curiosity being strongly excited, I solicited his acquaintance. In the course of three or four interviews I discovered, with much satisfaction, that the information he was able to communicate respecting the people with whom he had been so long and so intimately associated was very far superior to any thing that had yet appeared before the public. His answers to several inquiries, regarding their religion, government, aud habits of life, were given with that kind of unassuming confidence which bespeaks a thorough intimacy with the subject, and carries with it the conviction of truth-in fact, having been thrown upon those islands at an early age, his young and flexible mind had so accorded itself with the habits and circumstances of the natives, that he could not feel any disposition to overrate or embellish what to him was neither strange nor new. To my inquiries respecting his intentions of publishing, he replied, that having necessarily been, for several years, out of the habit either of writing or reading, or of that turn of thinking requisite for composition and arrangement, he was apprehensive his endeavours would fail in doing that justice to the work which I seemed to think its importance demanded: he modestly proposed, however, to submit * The accounts of circumnavigators are imperfect by reason of the shortness of their stay; of these, however, Captain Cook's is the most accurate. The missionaries might have furnished us with more intimate details, but their accounts relate rather to the history of their mission than that of the natives. One of them, an anonymous writer, in a small volume entitled, “A Four Years Residence at Tongataboo," gives a very imperfect account of the people, himself being the chief subject of his narrative. |