Christian nation. It surely is not impertinent or unreasonable to inquire what was the result of this visit, and what benefits were conferred upon these unenlightened but hospitable heathen, by the representatives of the most intelligent and virtuous people in Christendom. What efforts were made to do away the horrid rites of human sacrifices? What was done to check the licentiousness which every where prevailed? What was said to teach them that their religious notions were absurd and abominable? In what arts of civilization were they instructed? In a word, in what single respect were they made wiser, or happier, or better, by the residence, during three or four months, of so many men, so much, at least in intellectual cultivation, their acknowledged superiors?

The present age will not wonder, but we hope that an age is coming which will not only wonder, but weep to hear, that to all these questions the answer is nothing, absolutely nothing. So far from attempting to do away human sacrifices, captain Cook himself was present, once at least, during this ceremony, quietly looking on. Instead of teaching them a better religion, he suffered them to offer him solemn, and as far as they knew, divine homage, thus giving his highest sanction to their abominable rites. In the place of inculcating purity, there is no reason to doubt, that the whole crews were surrendered up to a license as debasing and as shameless as that of the savages themselves. In fine, we look in vain throughout the whole of captain Cook's narrative, for the remotest indication, that, either by officer or by crew, a single mechanical art was taught to the healthy, or a single medicine exhibited to the sick. Nay, not only was this not done; we have no manner of evidence that it was ever thought of. All that these Christians did, was to go and look on.

We have seen what the first Europeans did not do for the Sandwich Islands. If it be asked, what they actually did for them, truth compels us to answer, that, setting aside the efforts which missionaries have made for their benefit, it has rarely, in the history of our species, occurred, that one man has been the means of entailing upon a numerous and unoffending people, so griev ous and aggravated a curse, as was entailed by captain Cook, upon these very Islanders. A part of this mischief was the direct consequence of his visit ; the rest, the indirect result of his discovery.

We have mentioned the universal licentiousness of the crews of the discovery ships. The consequence of this licentiousness, was the introduction of a disease among the natives, the peculiar shame of civilization, which, with its train of horrid concomitants, has ever since been sending them by hundreds to the grave, and with which thousands are at this moment languishing in almost every island in the group.

VOL. III. No. 6.

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This was the effect of a single visit. But captain Cook pointed out their location to the world, and they soon became to ships traversing the North Pacific, a place of general resort for undergoing repair, for obtaining water and other refreshments. As many as one hundred vessels, in a single year, have entered the harbour of Honoruru. The effects of this intercourse we will now briefly consider.

To go into particulars, will not however be necessary. We have already alluded to the licentious manners of the natives. We have only to consider that these islands are separated by a voyage of twelve thousand and eighty miles from the civilized world; that there the restraints of society had not the shadow of existence; that every one who went there was bound by a sort of professional obligation to keep the secrets of his associates; and also let us remember what are the habits of our seamen in our own ports, under all the restraints of society, and every one may form for himself a tolerably accurate estimate of what was, for many years, the standard of their morality. They were a public brothel for every vessel that floated on the bosom of the Pacific. They were the resort of men, whose vice was too flagrant to be endured by respectable connexions in a civilized land. They had become a nuisance to the world. Virtue, which had successfully resisted the allurements of vice in Great Britain and America, here generally yielded to the torrent of overwhelming debauchery.

And here we cannot but pause to remark the fact, of which, however, the history of our species gives us many other instances, that men pass very readily from the usages of civilized, to those of savage life. Such was the case in the Sandwich Islands. The residents, in very many instances, instead of civilizing the savages, were uncivilized by them. We have been informed by an eye witness, not a missionary, nor a friend of missionaries, that young men, once accustomed to good society in some of our most polished seaports, might be seen in Honoruru, eating raw fish and drinking poe, with as much gout as the naked Ha-waiian who was squatting beside him.

The taste for ardent spirits was early introduced, and both sedulously and successfully cherished. The chiefs became universally intemperate, and when intoxicated, were in the habit of giving way to the most shocking excesses. The reason of this was twofold. In the first place, when once a love for intoxicating liquor has been created, it may be sold for almost any price; and secondly, it has been found by the experience of many an Indian treaty, that when savages engage in traffic with civilized men, alcohol is an all-prevalent promoter of those bargains, in which the "reciprocity is all on one side." But the Islanders were not left to the uncertainty of supply from abroad. A few of

the patriots from Botany Bay, having learnt that there was one country on the face of the earth where law need not be dreaded, found the means of escaping thither, and taught these savages the art of distillation.

The commerce of the Islands has become, it is true, very considerable. Besides fresh provisions, with which the vessels are supplied, large quantities of sandal wood are exported, and some salt is annually sold. But, strange as it may seem, even this tended very greatly to increase the wretchedness of the people. The government is absolute in the king, and, under him, in the chiefs. The whole class of the aristocracy exercise the most uncontrouled authority over the persons, the labour, and the property of their subjects. The plebeian has no right to the tree which he has planted, the pig which he has raised, nay, which he has killed and cooked, nor yet to the petty gratuity which he may have received for labour from a foreigner. Now, under such a government as this, nothing could have been more unfortunate than a foreign trade. Before the productions of the Islands could be exported, the demands of the chiefs upon the people were limited to the supply of their own personal wants, and these could not have been exorbitant. But, so soon as the productions of the Islands and the property of their subjects could be made to minister to their vices or their vanity, there was no end to their rapacity. Every thing that could be sold was seized upon by the chiefs. The people were drained to the very dregs. Their live stock and vegetables were sold, and they themselves were sent in hundreds to the mountains for sandal wood. While the chiefs were building houses to vie with the accommodations of Europe, their subjects were herding in hovels, from which a brute would gladly have escaped. While the people were seen with scarcely a rag of native cloth to cover their nakedness, the rulers were clothed in the richest stuffs of London or Canton, and consuming poe from splendid sofas, while their beauties were reflected from the most costly mirrors which an European metropolis could furnish.

The effects of all this may be very easily conceived. Poverty and infanticide, and incurable and infectious disease, made fearful havoc among the people. The Island of Tau-ai was computed by captain Cook to contain thirty thousand inhabitants; now it does not number more than ten thousand. It is probable that a diminution in something like the same proportion, has taken place in the other Islands. Kaahumanu, the present regent, declared it as her opinion, that the population of the Islands had diminished three fourths since captain Cook's visit. The people were affirmed by captain Cook to be neat and cleanly in their habitations; now they are, by the acknowledgment of all, most deplorably filthy. When first visited, their food of every kind

ty of improvement. The footing of the account is something like the following. "In every district of the Islands, schools have been established, and so rapidly had they increased, that an exact register of them all could not be kept. In the instruction of these schools, not less than four hundred native teachers have been employed, who, being able to read and write, and apparently well disposed, are in no small degree useful to those under their charge." The number of the learners in the several schools, in the beginning of 1827, exceeded twenty-five thousand; and it is estimated that by the close of 1828, twenty thousand inhabitants of the island of Ha-wai-i alone will be able to read the Gospel. It is proper also, in this place, to add, that, besides these labours, there had been one million five hundred thousand pages of tracts printed and distributed among the people, previous to October

1826.

But the attention of the chiefs and the people was not confined exclusively to the acquisition of reading and writing. They began to obey the precepts of Christianity in which they were instructed. Many of them were reformed from drunkenness. Gambling began to be discontinued. Several individuals, of the highest rank, professed themselves disciples of the religion of Christ, and, it must be acknowledged, have adorned their profession by a corresponding conduct. They themselves became the instructers of their people. A very general interest in this subject, was speedily disseminated, and it is now rapidly extending. Chapels have been erected by the chiefs, at their own expense, at all the missionary stations. Of the unusual disposition of the people to hear the gospel, we may form some conception from the facts, that at Honoruru the congregation has sometimes amounted to four thousand people. At Kaisua, the house of worship is one hundred and eighty feet long, and seventy-eight broad, and the usual congregation is three thousand. So great a change in the manners of a people has rarely been witnessed since the days of the apostles. Christian marriage has been introduced among the chiefs, and is making as rapid progress as could be expected. As early as 1824, four years after the establishment of the missions, so correct were their notions of the precepts of the Gospel-that one of them asked, with great simplicity, "from what part of America sailors came, whether they did not worship idols, and had never heard of God?" So far were some of them already in advance of many who had been born under all the advantages of a Christian education.

But as the chiefs are the lawgivers of the people, they, as might be expected from conscientious men, began to oppose their authority to the universal immorality which had overspread the nation. The first code of laws, proclaimed at the Sandwich Islands, was at Mau-i, by order of the present regent, in 1824. It

literature, and a discriminating love for the beautiful, in nature and in morals.

The first labour of the missionaries, was to reduce the dialect of the islands to the form of a written language. This, after considerable pains, they accomplished with great success. They then proceeded to instruct the chiefs in writing and reading, and, as soon as they were able to make themselves understood, commenced the preaching of the Gospel. The principal chiefs embraced with alacrity the opportunities of instruction, and so rapid was their progress, that, at the time of Mr. Stewart's arrival, April 1823, the king was able to write a letter to their captain, informing him that he had done well in bringing new teachers, and that the usual harbour fees would be remitted. On his first interview with the chiefs, Mr. S. found them dressed in "European costume, and that each had his spelling book and slate on his mat before him. They wrote their names on the slates, for us to read and secure the right pronunciation, and requested us to leave ours for the same purpose."

At first, the chiefs did not desire any but themselves to be instructed, assigning as a reason, that, if the palapala, or education, was not good, they did not want their subjects instructed, but if it was good, they desired first to have the advantage of it themselves. Of its excellence they were soon convinced, and were, as we have seen, within two years after the arrival of the missionaries, able to read and write, and in the frequent habit of corresponding with each other from the different Islands.

About the beginning of the year 1824, however, a more liberal spirit began to manifest itself, and they declared their intention to have all their subjects enlightened by the palapala, and applied for books to distribute amongst them. Schools were accordingly opened, with the most promising success. The first room for this purpose, was prepared by the young prince, now the heir apparent; and he presided himself, at the head of the school, under the superintendence of the missionaries. From this period, the progress of instruction has been more rapid, than in any other nation with which we have ever been acquainted. In July 1827, it was computed that in O-a-hu, one of the most important of the islands, as many as one third of the inhabitants gave their attention to instruction in some form or other. In a late exploring tour around Tau-ai, it was found, that, with only two exceptions, every village that was visited, was supplied with a school, and some were furnished with two or three. The number of pupils was estimated at six hundred. This was in May 1826. In March 1827, the number of schools was fifty, and of scholars one thousand six hundred, most of whom could read and write. We only have time to mention this, as a specimen of the rapidi