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Preface

This volume has been written with the object of elucidating the Journal of the Rev. Thomas Williams, Wesleyan Methodist missionary in Fiji from 1840 to 1853. As Sir Basil Thomson has said, he is "the principal authority upon the state of Society among the Fijians when Europeans first came upon them." Thomas Williams's book Fiji and the Fijians published in 1858 is well known especially to anthropologists. It is chiefly, but not exclusively, in the interests of anthropological science that I have decided to edit his Journal, the trustees of the Mitchell Library in Sydney having given their consent.

In the course of my investigations in Australia, Fiji and England I have come upon large and important collections of original documents which, so far as I am aware, have never been used by any author to compile a history of the Fijians in the period of their transition from the old order to the new. These collections supply a wealth of detail for the study of the Fijians incomparably greater, and, with certain reservations clearly indicated in my book, more reliable than can be derived from any other sources. I have tried to use the evidence in a purely scientific way with one object and one only—to tell what seems to me the truth about the Fijians and their customs, the war between the Heathens and the Christians and the work of the missionaries who resided in Fiji from 1835 to 1856. These are the three subjects expounded by Thomas Williams in his Journal.

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While engaged in working up the material for my book, which has necessitated many investigations on sea and land in the Fijian Archipelago in addition to my studies in Sydney, London, Europe and the island of Rotumah, I have been assisted by dozens of influential and well-informed people. Within the limits of a preface it is possible to mention only a few to whom I feel deeply indebted.

Of those who have helped me in Fiji I desire to express my gratitude to His Excellency Sir Eyre Hutson, K.C.M.G., Governor of Fiji and High Commissioner for the Western Pacific; the Hon. A. W. Seymour, Acting-Governor of Fiji in 1929; Commander R. H. De Salis, D.S.O., H.M.S. Veronica; Captain J. Mullins, F.R.G.S., H.M.C.S. Pioneer; the Hon. Isaac McOwan, Secretary for Native Affairs; Mr H. H. Vaskess, Acting-Secretary to the High Commissioner in 1928; Ratu Dave Tonganivalu, I.S.O., of Mbau; and Mr J. A. Savou of the Colonial Secretary's Department. In Rotumah to the Administrator, Dr W. K. Carew, and Father Griffon of Sumi. In England to Rear-Admiral Henry Percy Douglas, C.B., Hydrographer to the Admiralty, Commander Jackson, Superintendent of the Chart Room, and the Curator, Mr McKenzie; Mr F. D. Walker, Secretary to the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, Bishopsgate, London; Mr E. Heawood, M.A., Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society; Mr William Gordon Perrin, O.B.E., and Mr Smith of the Admiralty Library; Mr F. P. Sprent, M.A., and Mr R. S. W. Flower, M.A., of the British Museum; Mr C. T. Flower, M.A., F.S.A., Secretary of the Record Office; Dr J. C. Lyth of York; and Mr H. Carlton of Horncastle. In the Mitchell Library in Sydney, where I have been at work on original manuscripts for the past three years, I have been treated with unfailing kindness by the trustees; Mr W. H. Ifould, O.B.E., Principal Librarian; Mr Hugh Wright, Mitchell Librarian; and members of the page xistaff. I desire also to tender my thanks to the Right Hon. Stanley Melbourne Bruce, P.C., and Mr J. G. McLaren, C.M.G., B.A., for services which have helped me in my travels abroad in search of information.

Four names I have reserved for the conclusion of my preface: Dr F. C. Wieder of Leiden, Holland, editor of the Monumenta Cartographica, who helped me very effectually toward the solution of the most puzzling problem of my investigations, by telling me where the map of the Pacific carried by Tasman on his great voyage of discovery might be found, and by giving me a photographic copy of the map of Tasman's voyage which he intends to publish in the fourth volume of the Monumenta Cartographica; Mr Leonard C. Wharton of the British Museum, who translated for me from the Russian the portion of Bellinsgauzen's Journal dealing with the discovery of Ono-i-lau; Mr Lionel Lindsay of Sydney, who made the etching of his grandfather Thomas Williams for the frontispiece to the Journal; Mr Arthur Leopold Armstrong, Acting-Secretary for Native Affairs in Fiji in 1929, who has explained the difficult Fijian words and passages used by Thomas Williams in his Journal.

I sincerely hope that the many kind friends whose services have not been acknowledged, will not think that I am unmindful or ungrateful. I am not. My indebtedness is, I am well aware, very much wider and deeper than I have been able to express in this preface.

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