terested in
this, as it would have been impossible to get fresh hands at Sydney, the
temptation to settle in the country having by that time become very
great, so that it was with difficulty we could keep several of our
people who had come from England.

Once more we were at sea. We touched at Norfolk Island, to which
convicts from New South Wales were sent. It seemed a pity that so
fertile a spot, so perfect a little paradise, should be given up for
such a purpose. We obtained here a supply of vegetables and pork, which
were not to be got at that time at any price at Sydney. After a rapid
voyage from this lovely little island we anchored in Matavai Bay, in the
island of Otaheite. It was at an interesting time of the history of the
island and its king, Otoo, who since the death of his father had taken
the name of Pomarre. For many years the band of zealous missionaries
who had come out in the ship _Duff_ had laboured on among the people,
but though they taught the king, the young prince Otoo, and some of
their people, to read and write, they confessed that they had not made
one satisfactory convert. In 1808 the greater number of the
missionaries retired from Otaheite to the island of Huahine, and the
following year all the married ones left that island for New South
Wales, in consequence of the wars in which the king was constantly
engaged, the destruction of all their property, the risk they ran of
losing their lives, and the seeming hopelessness of introducing
Christianity among such a people. After an absence of between two and
three years, several of them, having wished to make a fresh attempt to
carry out the work, sailed from Sydney for Tahiti, but stopped at the
neighbouring island of Kimeo, where the king was residing, as Tahiti was
still in a state of rebellion. They taught the people as before, and
now some began to listen to them gladly. They still seemed to have
considered the king as a hopeless heathen; but misfortune had humbled
him, he felt his own nothingness and sinfulness, and the utter inability
of the faith of his fathers to give him relief. After the missionaries
had lived in the island about a year, the king came to them and offered
himself as a candidate for baptism, declaring that it was his fixed
determination to worship Jehovah, the true God, and expressing his
desire to be further instructed in the principles of religion. The king
proved his sincerity, and ever after remained a tru