As the Sandwich Islands afford a valuable article of commerce in sandal wood, and are favorably situated for supplying with provisions whale ships, and other vessels crossing the Pacific, they have been much more frequently visited by foreigners, than the other Polynesian groups. For several years past, indeed, factors and agents from England and the United States have resided there for mercantile purposes. This intercourse has naturally caused some advancement in the arts of civilization; new wants have been created, by an acquaintance with articles of convenience or luxury unknown before, and to supply these wants new incentives have been given to industry. It is melancholy to know, however, that the vices of civilization have made their way, in too many instances, more rapidly than its improvements or comforts; that indulgence in novel sources of gratification has unnerved the arm of enterprise; that the powerful, instead of being quickened to industry, have laid more oppressive burdens on the weak. This must perhaps always be the case under similar circumstances. Civilization is not the work of a day; nor is it an opinion, a theory, or consent of the mind; it is a habit, an acquired nature, the growth of years, wrought into the being and constitution of the human system, both intellectual and corporeal. A savage is not to be brought to this state at once; it has cost the education of a life in the civilized man, and it can hardly be done at less expense of time and care in the uncivilized. One of the great instruments of civilization is restraint; society itself, as well as the closer ties of private relationships, is held together by the system of restraints, to which every member subjects himself; restraints on appetites, feelings, wishes, conduct. We have learnt to do this by habit from infancy; education, a cultivated understanding, refined moral sense, the knowledge of a pure religion, and example, have contributed each its portion to confirm the habit, and make up the civilized man. Now the savage has all these appetites and propensities, without the habit of controlling them, or of resisting temptation; and without the moral light and culture, that enable him to discern their pernicious tendency, and reflect on the consequences of indulgence. Nature manages the matter very well, while it is wholly in her charge; she teaches the savage to be contented with his narrow comforts, and confine his wants to the means of supply, which his rude skill in the arts of life has compassed. But when civilization has poured out before him her accumulated stores, tempted him with novelty, and

pampered him with the promise of new gratifications, he is no longer under the pupilage of nature; he becomes a civilized man to the utmost of his power; that is, he gives way to all the excesses of civilized life, in which he needs no instructers but his appetites, and possesses none of the virtues, principles, and habits, which are the balancing weights in the character of the civilized man, but which are only to be acquired by a long train of discipline. Hence it is, that the Sandwich Islanders were not for a time in the way of the best influences of civilization; they were visited by seamen, or traffickers, whose example was not a shining light, and whose business and interest it was to furnish the natives with such articles as they most craved, and for which there was the quickest demand.

Such was the condition of the Sandwich Islanders from the time of their discovery by Cook, till very recently; but we are happy to state, that a salutary change is now taking place, and that prospects of improvement among them are in a high degree encouraging. In April of the year 1820, a body of Missionaries from this country arrived at Hawaii, and were favorably received by the king. Being divided into small parties, they were stationed on different islands, and from that period have been laboring with great zeal and selfdevotedness to advance the intellectual, moral, and religious culture of the natives. Schools have been established, houses for stated religious worship erected, a printing press put in operation, and books published in the Hawaiian dialect; many of the natives have already been taught reading, writing, and the elementary principles of a refined education. This is taking the true ground; it is opening a way gradually to the hearts and understanding of the people; it is scattering seed in the minds of the rising generation, which will hereafter spring up, and flourish, and produce fruit.

The arrival of the Missionaries among the Sandwich Islanders, we hold to be an important era in the history of that people. Certain political events had then recently occurred, favorable to the objects of the Missionaries, which it is here proper to recount; and in doing this, we shall glance briefly at the character

*The first Mission embarked from this country on the 23d of October, 1819. It consisted of seven men and their wives. Messrs Bingham and Thurston were clergymen; Mr Chamberlain, farmer; Dr Holman, physician; Mr Whitney, teacher and mechanic; Mr Ruggles, teacher; Mr Loomis, printer. Three natives, Honooree, Hopoo, and Tennooe, who had been educated in this country, also returned with the Mission.

of the great king Tamehameha, and the government established by him. This personage stands out in bold relief on the prominent lists of men, who, by their talents, have acquired an unbounded dominion over others, and by their conquests and good fortune have made themselves objects of the gaze and wonder of the world. Tamehameha was the Gengis Khan, or Bonaparte, of Polynesia. He conquered till there was nothing more to conquer, and he ruled absolute to the end of his life. In former times the Sandwich Islands were governed by chiefs independent of each other. The right of government was hereditary in the principal chiefs; subordinate governors ruled under them; and in some cases the authority of a chief extended beyond his island. Hawaii was divided into several districts, over each of which a chief presided, and although these chiefs possessed different degrees of authority and power, it does not appear, that either of them acknowledged a permanent dependence on any of the others. Wars were constant, but rather for predatory purposes, than for conquest, or the extension of territory.

The author of the Tour around Hawaii visited a place called Halaua, on the north eastern extremity of the island, which is understood to have been the birthplace of Tamehameha. His original possessions consisted of lands inherited from his ancestors at Halaua, and a small tract on another part of the island in the district of Kona. He lived in the place of his birth till he was grown to the age of manhood, and tradition records many extraordinary incidents in his youthful years, and points to the yet remaining monuments of his early enterprise and prowess. Nature endowed him with an active and vigorous mind, and the happy faculty of winning the esteem, and commanding the respect of his companions, in such a manner as to impress them with a sense of his superiority, and make them his willing followers, and the zealous abettors of his designs. He was fond of athletic exercises and warlike amusements, of planning and executing difficult undertakings. He dug wells, and excavated passages through rocks, for a more easy access to the seashore. One of his accomplishments was agriculture; he cultivated a field of potatoes and other vegetables with his own hands; it is still shown to the traveller, and called by his name; other fields were in like manner cultivated by his companions, who followed his example; he planted groves, which are now standing. But nothing was more remarkable in his character, than the strict and profound worship, which he rendered to his

god Tairi; this god he supposed to have great power, and to require his most devoted service.

The history of the first part of the political life of Tamehameha, has not yet been brought to light. What motives, other than the promptings of his restless and ambitious spirit, first induced him to wage war, and then to continue it till he had acquired universal dominion, we have no means of explaining. It is known, however, that a great battle was fought in the year 1780, on the plains of Mokuohai, near the place where Captain Cook was killed, which lasted seven or eight days, and was contested with great obstinacy on both sides, till at length Tamehameha succeeded in killing the king, routing his party, and securing a complete victory. Prodigies of valor are said to have been exhibited in that battle; Tamehameha's god Tairi was elevated on the field, and surrounded by its priests; with this image before their eyes Tamehameha, his sisters, and friends fought with desperate bravery, and undaunted confidence. This battle decided the destiny of Hawaii; from that day the old dynasty of kings was at an end, and Tamehameha was the sole monarch of the country. In due time the other islands submitted to his authority, and he reigned king of all the Sandwich Islands till the time of his death, a period of nearly forty years. The fact of his reigning so long over such a people, is a proof not less of his prudence and wisdom, than his surprising ascendency to power is of his talents and valor.

When the vessel, which took out the Missionaries, approached Hawaii, the first intelligence that came from the shore was the death of Tamehameha. He had died the year before, in 1819, and was succeeded by his son Rihoriho. It was further added, that idol worship was abolished by the new king, the idols ordered to be destroyed, the old tabu system broken up, and, in short, that the ancient religion of Hawaii was abrogated by a royal mandate. All this, incredible as it was, proved to be true; and in Rihoriho we have the phenomenon of a savage prince, strictly educated in the most superstitious rites, not only deserting the religion of his ancestors, but using his power to abolish it. This is the more remarkable, as one of the last injunctions of Tamehameha was, that his son should cling to the religion of his fathers, and render due homage to those gods, who had so long been the protectors of his family and the nation. Rihoriho heeded not this admonition, for he was hardly clothed with the regal authority, before he ordered the idols to be destroyed, the

temples pulled down, and the priesthood dissolved. So violent a measure could not fail to be met with opposition, and some of his revolting subjects took up arms in defence of their gods, and assembled in battle against the forces of the king. They were overcome and put to flight, however, after a severe and bloody conflict, and they at length capitulated and yielded to the king's decree. Rihoriho was successful in putting down the insurrection, and, what was more surprising, in suddenly bringing the great mass of the people into his own views; and the old idolatry received a shock, from which it had no power to recover. His most important ministers and friends favored his designs, and when his mother, Keopuolani, was consulted on the subject, she said to the messengers; You speak very properly, our gods have done us no good, they are cruel, let the king's wish and yours be gratified.' It does not appear, that any harsh means were resorted to in carrying this decree into effect, nor that devotees were disturbed in their old modes of worship; toleration was allowed, but the example of the king and chiefs was more effectual, than any code of penal laws. The idols were tumbled down, and treated as senseless stocks and stones. Priests and priestesses, sorcerers and fanatics, the usual instruments of a gross superstition, still remain and practise upon the fears of the people. These artifices will have their effect for a time, but a single glimpse of light from a better system will scatter such delusions, when the mind has once escaped from the dark bondage of a wretched idolatry, and will prepare the way for a reception of rational ideas.

The causes of so astonishing a change in that most deeply rooted of all intellectual habits, the religion of a people, cannot perhaps be fully ascertained, without a better knowledge of the history of the times, than has yet come to us. A few of them, however, are obvious. They grew necessarily out of the frequent intercourse of the natives with foreigners, and the notions imbibed by some of the more intelligent among them, respecting the customs of other countries. The old idolatry was a most oppressive burden; it harassed the mind with incessant fears of the anger and destroying power of the deities; it exacted practices not more absurd, than cruel and subversive of the order and happiness of society; it even demanded human sacrifices. The tabu system, so universal throughout all the Polynesian islands, is the most terrible instrument of human tyranny, which has ever been known; no other parts of the