s with other nations, and the arts,
inventions, and customs of the European world. Adams's knowledge is
probably not very extensive, but it has sufficed to enable him to train
up his numerous family in habits and information which fit them for the
easy acquisition of all the arts of civilization.

His attentive auditory have accurately retained his instructions, and
converse with wonderful facility on the characteristics and customs of
different nations.

Abusive words are strictly prohibited; and some of the islanders,
perfectly astonished at hearing a sailor on board the American vessel
which visited them swear at another, enquired of the Captain whether
such expressions were permitted in his country.

The Captain was enchanted with the conduct and character of this amiable
people; and ascribed their virtues to the instructions and example of
their patriarch. This good old man, however, expressed much anxiety
concerning the future. "I cannot," said he, "live much longer,--and who
shall prosecute the work I have begun? My children are not yet so firmly
established, but that they are liable to fall into error. They require
the guidance of an intelligent virtuous man from some civilized nation."

At Tahaiti, as already stated, I met with one of Adams's wives, who had
arrived there a short time before in an European ship, and from her I
learnt many of the particulars here related. She spoke tolerably good
English, but with a foreign accent. This old woman had been induced, by
that longing for our native home which acts so powerfully upon the human
mind, to return to the land of her birth, where she intended to have
closed her life, but she soon changed her mind. The Tahaitians, she
assured me, were by no means so virtuous as the natives of the little
Paradise to which she was now all impatience to return. She had a very
high opinion of her Adams, and maintained that no man in the world was
worthy of comparison with him. She still spoke with vehement indignation
of the murder of the English by her countrymen, and boasted of the
vengeance she had taken.

Adams, who was now very aged and feeble, had proposed to the
Missionaries to send a Tahaitian as his successor; and fearing that the
population of his island might exceed the means of subsistence which
their quantity of arable land afforded, he was desirous of settling some
of his families in Tahaiti.

With his first wish the Missionaries will certainly comply as a me