n abandoned by others.

In 1861 the John Williams conveyed Mr and Mrs Lawes to Savage Island.
They were the first European missionaries appointed to labour there.
Hundreds of men and women, all well clothed, were assembled on the shore
to receive them. Outwardly, not a vestige of heathenism remained among
them. There were five good chapels in the island, one of which held
eleven hundred, but it was too small for the congregation. Prayer
meetings were frequently held, at which all the people in the district
attended. On each occasion when they were held by Mr Lawes not less
than eight hundred were present. The whole of the inhabitants are now
professing Christians, and a very large proportion are earnest and
enlightened believers.

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The reader will call to mind the incidents of Captain Cook's visit to
the Tonga, or Friendly group, the high state of cultivation in which he
found the islands, the apparently friendly reception he met with from
the chiefs, and their treacherous purposes to cut off the ship, as they
shortly afterwards did a merchantman which visited their shores,
murdering most of the crew.

In consequence of Captain Cook's too favourable report, a number of
missionaries were sent out by the London Missionary Society, in the ship
Duff, already mentioned, under the command of Captain Wilson. These
pious men landed on the islands in 1797, but they made no apparent
progress, and war breaking out, three of them lost their lives, and the
rest escaped to Sydney. This was in the year 1800.

In 1802, Mr Lawry, of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, commenced a
mission at Nukualofa, in Tongataboo. Though compelled for a time to
abandon it, he returned in 1826, and, through his instrumentality,
Tubou, the king, and many of his chiefs and people embraced
Christianity. It is worthy of remark that, just before this time, the
London Missionary Society had commenced a mission on the island; but
they yielded up the field to the Wesleyans, while the latter retired
from Samoa, where they had commenced a mission. The Wesleyans have
since then laboured exclusively, and with most encouraging success, in
the Friendly and Fiji Islands and New Zealand, leaving to the London
Missionary Society the wide scope of the Pacific.

In 1827 the Revs. Nathaniel Turner and William Cross took up their
residence at Nukualofa. At that time Josiah Tubou was king