the South Seas, without having caused any perceptible
diminution in the population. It is not known that plague of any kind
has ever raged here: it was, therefore, the bloody persecution
instigated by the Missionaries which performed the office of a
desolating infection. I really believe that these pious people were
themselves shocked at the consequences of their zeal; but they soon
consoled themselves; and have ever since continued to watch with the
most vigilant severity over the maintenance of every article of their
faith. Hence, among the remains of these murdered people, their former
admirable industry, and their joyous buoyancy of spirits, have been
changed for continual praying, and meditating upon things which the
teachers understand as little as the taught.

The Tahaitians of the present day hardly know how to plait their mats,
make their paper stuffs, or cultivate a few roots. They content
themselves with the bread-fruit, which the soil yields spontaneously in
quantities more than sufficient for their reduced population. Their
navy, which excited the astonishment of Europeans, has entirely
disappeared. They build no vessels but a few little paltry canoes, with
which they fish off the neighbouring coral islands, and make their
longest voyages in American and European boats which they have
purchased. With the method of producing those commodities of civilized
nations which they prize so highly, they are still as much as ever
unacquainted. They possess sheep, and excellent cotton; but no
spinning-wheel, no loom, has yet been set in motion among them; they
choose rather to buy their cloth and cotton of foreigners for real gold
and pearls; one of our sailors sold an old shirt for five piastres.
Horses and cattle have been brought to them, but the few that remain
have fallen into the possession of strangers, and have become so scarce,
that one hundred piastres was asked for an ox, that we wanted in
provisioning the ship. The Queen alone possesses a pair of horses, but
she never uses them. The island contains but one smith, though the
assistance of the forge and bellows would be so useful in repairing the
iron tools which have superseded those of stone formerly in use. It is
extraordinary that even the foreigners established here carry on no kind
of mechanical trade. Can it be that the Missionaries object to it? It is
certain that they possess great influence even over the settlers. An
American, however, was planning