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A Sketch of the History of Tonga

IV. — King George

page 342

IV.
King George.

When Tubou-toa was establishing himself in Tongatabu, he did not leave the government of Haapai unprovided for. His son Taufaahau1 was now growing up to manhood. Born in the year 1797, he was two years old when the murder of his grandfather, Tukuaho, plunged the country into civil war. His childhood was spent among scenes of famine and bloodshed, the horrors introduced from Fiji, where boys of his age were taught to torture wounded prisoners in order to make them pitiless. He saw the crew of the Port-au-Prince struck down on the beach at Haano, and stood by while eight of his countrymen perished, stifled by the oil in the vessel's hold, in which they could not swim. He remembered the alarms of that night when his father slew Tubou Niua, and so avenged his grandfather's death. At an age when boys are still playing with toy canoes, he was joining his father in the night attacks that have made his name a terror to Tongatabu. His great natural powers were enhanced by the most careful athletic training. As he surpassed his fellows in stature and length of limb, so was he their superior in all sports that demand skill. None was so fleet of foot, none could meet him in a wrestling-or a boxing-match, none could endure against him in swimming in the surf, nor handle a tafaanga laden

1 In this chapter King George is called Taufaahau until his accession to the throne under the royal name of Tubou.

page 343with fish in a seaway as he; none was his match in a fight to the death. During one of the annual attacks upon Tonga, he had left his comiades near the canoe, and had gone a little way from the shoic. Suddenly he found himself, aimed with only a Fijian throwing-club, face to face with five assailants, who had lain in ambush for him. His followers were too tar off for his voice to reach them, and he knew that against then long spears his throwingclub could avail him little. He turned and ran before them, keeping just out of reach of there weapons, leading
A tafaanga in the surf.

A tafaanga in the surf.

them inland towards a place that he knew of where the soil gave place to jagged limestone rocks Little distressed himself, he ran on until he knew by their labouring breath that his pursuers had begun to tail off. This was his opportunity. He turned and met the leading man, and struck him down before he could recover from his surprise. Seizing the spear that dropped from his hand, he fell upon the second and third, who, gasping for page 344breath after their run, were at a great disadvantage. The other two did not await his onset, but fled, leaving him victorious.

Such was his reputation as a warrior, that he was marked as the future leader of the Haapai people when he had scarcely attained manhood. He was twenty-three when his father died in 1820, and the unity of Tongatabu, bought by years of hard fighting, was again swept away by civil war. Taufaahau saw no advantage in following his father's example, who ever wearily pushed up the stone of conquest in. Tongatabu only to see it roll back upon him weakened by his hopeless labour. The Government of Haapai, impoverished as it was by the yeais of war, would give him work enough.

For six years there was no Tui Kanokubolu. The garrisons of Tongatabu still lived within their intrenchments, but they were tired of war, and for a time there was an armed peace. But a power was at hand which was destined to accomplish that which invading armies had fought in vain. In June 1822 a Methodist missionary named Lawry, fired by the writings of the survivors of the artisan missionaries landed by the Duff, made a second attempt to teach Christianity. The growing disbelief in the ancient superstitions that had led Finau Ulukalala to attempt the abolition of the great inaji, and to curtail the privileges of the Tui Tonga, had spread to Tongatabu. The influence of the priests had been undermined by the licence of war, and Lawry had not to face the difficulties that beset the pioneers of the Duff. He found the chief power in Tongatabu to be in the hands of Maealiuaki, or Talau as he was page 345also called, the son of Mulikihaamea, who was temporal sovereign before Mumui. He had married Kananga, a granddaughter of Mumui, who had just borne him a son, Tungi,1 who was through his grandfather, Mulikihaamea, the representative of the Tui Haatakalaua. Fortunately for Lawry's influence, in November 1823 a young chief named Futakava, who had been taken to New Zealand and Sydney by a passing vessel, returned to Tonga. They had treated Lawry's accounts of the wonders of foreign countries with scepticism, but they did not think of doubting the evidence of one of their own countrymen, even when, after the manner of travellers, he indulged in exaggeration. But before Lawry could expect to reap the fruit of his labours he left the islands. His stay of fourteen months served, however, to pave the way for his successor.

In 1826 two Tahitian teachers landed at Nukualofa and began, to hold services; and two months later a Mr Thomas, despatched by the Methodist Society in England, landed at Hihifo, and put himself under the protection of the chief Ata. For some months he had to contend against opposition, but in 1827 the spirit of curiosity was so far awakened in the natives as to make it safe for him to hold services in Nukualofa At the close of the previous year Tubou, a half-brother of the murdered Tukuaho, was elected Tui Kanokubolu, and formally installed. It has been said that he was elected as a bribe to wean him from his leanings towards the new faith, but a comparison of the dates of his appointment and Mr Thomas's arrival makes it more

1 Speaker of the Assembly, and Tukuaho's father.

page 346probable that his election was the result of a prolonged peace of six years, which gave the chiefs time to revert to the ancient constitution of society. One year after his election he publicly embraced Christianity, and a party, having for its object active resistance to the new faith, was immediately formed against him. Tubou was utterly wanting in force of character. His impulse to please every one led him to temporise with the heathen party, which was composed for the most part of chiefs who saw in the new faith a menace to their own power over their people. Had he been less vacillating he might have crushed the growing resistance to his authority at its birth, but his resolution failed him until it was too late.
Against his irresolution the character of Taufaahau stood out in strong relief. He had long been sceptical about the gods of his ancestors, and his mind was ripe to imbibe new ideas. He had heard of the new teachings, and he longed to hear them for himself. He therefore wrote to Mr Thomas asking that a missionary might be sent to him. No white missionary was available at the time, and he had therefore to be content with Peter Vi,1 the ablest of the new converts. Bitterly disappointed, Taufaahau refused at first to receive him, but at last his curiosity prevailed, and he allowed Peter to teach him to write. As soon as he understood the teachings of the new religion he signed the death-warrant of the old. To silence the opposition of the native priests, he dragged Peter with him into many escapades intended to discredit the deities of his ancestors. They presented kava to

1 The same who visited us on a hand-cart in Haapai.

page 347the priestess of Haehaetahi, and beat the unfortunate woman, challenging her god to avenge the insult; they hanged five idols by the neck, and burned the spirithouses, to convince the people by ocular demonstration that infringement of the tabu had no penalties.

In 1827 Captain d'Urville in the Astrolabe anchored at Pangaimotu,1 and was attacked by a party of natives, who carried off with them one of his marines. Not being disposed to land, or apply to the local authorities, and knowing the evil character the people had earned in their attempts to take ships, he bombarded the island for two days without doing serious damage. Later in the year Peter Dillon, on his way to find the remains of de la Perouse's ill-fated expedition at Vanikoro, put in for a few days to secure interpreters.

Finau Ulukalala III. (Tuabaji, alias Finau Fiji2), who now held independent sway over Vavau, following Taufaahau's example, had also written for a missionary; but his motive proved to be that of mere curiosity, and he soon cast off his new professions. In April 1831 Taufaahau visited Vavau with twenty-four sail of canoes, on political business, and took that opportunity for attempting the conversion of his eccentric neighbour. It was a hard task, and he found it necessary to sail back to Haapai unattended to ascertain from the missionary whether it would be safe to promise Finau a missionary if he would consent to renounce his gods. Satisfied upon this point, he returned to the attack. Being before all things practical, Finau determined to give his fathers' gods one last chance before finally

1 Near Nukualofa.

2 Described by Mariner.

page 348breaking with them. He had seven of the principal idols placed in a row, and addressed them as follows. " I have brought you here to prove you, and I will tell you beforehand what I am going to do, so that you may have no excuse. I am going to burn you If you be gods, escape! " But as the idols made no attempt to escape, he gave orders that the spirit-houses should be set on fire. Eighteen were thus destroyed, but the weather being damp, they took four days to consume, and the people sat by terrified, waiting for the retribution that must follow such iniquity.

Meanwhile Finau's brother prepared to oppose the new faith by force of arms. After plundering the outlying villages of Vavau, he intrenched himself on an uninhabited island Finau called upon Taufaahau to helphim out of the difficulty brought about by following his advice At the head of a strong party of Haapai warriors he landed on the island, and tried his powers of persuasion upon the hostile force. Besides his physical prowess Taufaahau possessed another gift that appeals most, powerfully to primitive man — eloquence. Often when his men were jaded, hungry, and dispirited, a few words from him would turn their thoughts from their own sufferings to the glory to be won by fiery courage and the shame of failure. "When Tubou spoke like that," said one of his chiefs, "the warriors would not wait to hear the end, but rushed upon the enemy and bore them down."

While the enemy still hesitated he prepared for the attack, but they did not await his onset. They threw open the rude gateway and sued for peace. No blood was shed, but the leader was banished to Fiji, and a number of his page 349followers were taken to Haapai as prisoners of war. This moderation on the part of conquerors was the first-fruits of the new faith, for by ancient usage the lives of the chief rebels would have been forfeited.

In 1833 Finau Ulukalala died, and on his deathbed committed the govermnent of Vavau to Taufaahau until his heir should be grown up. Upon this the Roman Catholic missionaries have founded a charge of usurpation against King George which may be easily answered. The heir died, and before his successor had attained manhood Tonga had become a united kingdom with a Constitution, and to give Vavau an independent government would have brought the whole fabric to the ground. But Tubou showed me on more than one occasion that he was uneasy about Finau's dying charge.

Taufaahau was now in reality an independent sovereign of the joint kingdoms of Haapai and Vavau, and was free to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Tui Kanokubolu or not as he pleased. Under his influencc the new religion had been embraced by the people of Haapai and Vavau with all the emotional zeal of new converts. In their restless energy, and the ease with which enthusiasm or suspicion may be excited in their minds, the Vavauaus are a race distinct from their neighbours of the southern groups,—as distinct as the contrast between their mountainous romantic island and the flat shores of Haapai and Tongatabu. They may be violent partisans or bitter enemies—they cannot be neutral. They are, in short, the Irish of Tonga. It was not long before the missionaries, by awakening this curious quality of hysterical enthusiasm, had established over them a clerical despot-page 350ism that made them independent of political changes. But against the silent forces of inherited enmities in Tongatabu, the legacy of years of civil war, Christianity could make no headway. It was enough that Tubou the king had accepted the white man's religion for the chiefs averse to his rule to remain heathen. That Tui Vakano had been converted was reason enough for Lavaka, lord of Bea, to continue unregenerate. In 1835 the chief holding the title of Tui Vakano joined the missionaries, and his people formally deprived him of his title, and expelled him from their midst. Furious at the treatment he had received, he reported that the heathen party were determined to depose King Tubou by force of arms. The Christians immediately threw up intrenchments at Nukualofa, and thus precipitated the outbreak of hostilities. But a severe huni cane, that destroyed the food supplies, compelled both parties to remain inactive throughout 1836. At this juncture it is probable that the king might have averted war had he shown the least firmness or energy; but as he made no effort to win over the hostile party by diplomatic means, and the missionaries were powerless to quell the strife they had raised, civil war became inevitable.

In January 1837 the Christian party took up arms with the avowed object of suppressing a rebellion, and met a body of the heathen near Bea, defeating them. "The heathen party could put more fighting men into the field, and Tubou therefore sent to Taufaahau for reinforcements from Haapai. It was a missionary war—a crusade in which the club and the Bible were linked against the powers of darkness; and no knight-errant ever 'went page 351against the Crescent with greater zest thau the new converts showed in their quarrel with their heathen countrymen By the middle of March the struggle was at an end and peace was declared, but still neither party felt safe outside of their intrenchments. The principal conditions imposed upon the heathen were that no person should be persecuted for his religion.

They did not long keep their undertaking. Both at Hihifo and Bea the new converts were subjected to petty annoyances that more than once drove them to arms again, and goaded several to return to the gods of their forefathers. But the threatened renewal of civil war did not prevent the hostile parlies from meeting on the occasion of a great national festival. On the 14th of May 1837, Tui Belehake, a chief of the family of the Tui Tonga, married Charlotte, Tanfaahau's daughter. At this marriage all the heathen chiefs attended and mixed with the Christian chiefs on friendly terms.1

One can sympathise with the feelings of the heathen chiefs. The new religion, they saw, would soon destroy the little power that remained to them. It was introduced by foreigners, and was being forced on them by their hereditary enemies of Haapai and Vavau, who made it an excuse for plundering their homes, just as they had done in their annual raids before the Christian religion had been

1 This event enables us to fix the king's age with some degree of probability Taking King George to have been twenty-five years old at the time of Charlotte's birth (for he had a son older than Charlotte), and her age at marriage to have been at least seventeen, King George must have been born in 1797. Charlotte's grandson, Taufaahau, succeeded King George in March 1893. She died at Nukualofa in August 1891, after her return from exile for adherence to the Wesleyan Church.

page 352even heard of among them. It was a foreign religion, and it aimed at destroying their influence over their people and substituting that of a foreigner; therefore they, as Tongans, would resist it to the death.

In 1839 it was reported that a plot to assassinate the king had been discovered. The storm-clouds were gathering thick, but still they did not break. In January 1840 King Josiah Tubou paid a friendly visit to Ata in Hihifo, and some of Ata's followers took that opportunity for attacking and killing a party of Christians in their plantations. This outrage being a declaration of war, a strong party was at once despatched from Nukualofa to bring the king to a place of safety. The heathen party invested Fou'i, and Tubou, knowing that the fall of Fou'i would be the signal for an attack upon Nukualofa, sent a fast sailing canoe to. Haapai to implore Taufaahau's help "When he arrived it was arranged that he should meet the enemy and submit terms of peace to them. A deserter from the enemy met him on the way to the meeting, and warned him that a plot had been formed to shoot him from an ambush as soon as he reached the appointed place. He at once returned to Nukualofa, and advanced upon Hihifo with all his forces. After investing the place for nearly a fortnight he had recourse to a curious stratagem. When civil war breaks out in Tonga, it is the custom for each man to fight on the side of the people with whom he happened to be staying on the outbreak of hostilities. Thus brothers often find themselves ranged against one another. He now ordered such of his men as had relations or friends among the enemy to advance to the ditch and call upon his friend to desert, assuring him of safety. When this was done numbers of the page 353besieged jumped over the wall and joined the besiegers, leaving the garrison too weak to resist Hihifo thus yielded without the loss of a single life, and Taufaahau, true to his promise, spared the lives of the 500 prisoners who fell into his hands.

He now consented to take up his permanent quarters in Nukualofa with his army of 900 men and their families. On April 20, 1840, an attack was made upon some stragglers near Nukualofa. The Christians were upon the point of making reprisals when Commodore Wilkes of the United States exploring expedition arrived, and offered his services as mediator between the hostile parties. But his efforts were frustrated by a fresh attack by the heathen, and he left the island without effecting his object. Rightly or wrongly, he formed the opinion that the missionaries by their indiscriminating zeal had brought about the war, and that King George Taufaahau was using the opportunity to so increase his prestige as to secure his succession to the office of the reigning king. Although the result of the war was the advancement of the interests both of King George and the missionaries, I see no reason to believe that either were disinclined for peace. The worst that can be said is that it was a missionary war, brought about by zeal untempered with discretion, and that in this respect only can the bloodshed be laid at the missionaries' door.

On the 21st May 1840 Captain Croker anchored at Nukualofa in H.M.S. Favourite, and was appealed to by the missionaries to help them out of their difficulties. He landed half his ship's company, and advanced upon the fortress of Bea with three field-pieces. The guns were brought into position within range of the enemy's muskets, page 354and Captain Croker entered the fort under a flag of truce. The garrison were willing to listen to his terms, and he left them with the understanding that they should have half an hour to consult their allies. At the end of the time an English sailor, nicknamed Jimmy the Devil,1 who was armourer to the heathen forces, appeared above the gate and asked for more time-indeed it afterwards transpired that they were upon the point of accepting the terms; but Captain Croker stood watch in hand, and upon the stroke of the half-hour he ran towards the gate crying, "Now, men, follow me." In the first volley from the fort he and several of his men were wounded, and as he leaned for support against a cocoa-nut-tree he was shot through the heart. Two of his officers were killed, and nineteen men wounded: the survivors succeeded with great difficulty in carrying off the injured, and they at once put to sea, taking with them the missionaries and their families. The field-pieces are still in the hands of the Tongans, and serve to keep green the memory of how they beat a British man-of-war.

The whole blame of this extraordinary incident, which has done so much to damage British prestige with the Tongans, must rest upon Captain Croker, who paid for his folly with his life. For becoming the aggressor in a quar-

1 There was more than one "Jimmy the Devil" in Tonga. A few months after the attack upon Bea, some of the blue-jackets were discussing the affair in a public-house in Sydney. A man sitting near, hearing the word Tonga, joined in the conversation, saying that he had been in the islands. "They called me 'Jimmy the Devil' down there," he added. The wretched man barely escaped from the blue-jackets with his life. They had mistaken him for the "Jimmy" who shot down their commander.

page 355rel
that did not concern him he may be excused—for, in the excitement of the time, it is more than probable that the missionaries greatly exaggerated their own danger, and thus placed him in the position of a protector of British interests; but for the gross incompetence and indiscretion shown in leading the attack he must bear the sole responsibility.

The heathen party, having beaten off their assailants, began to grow tired of the confinement of life within their intrenchments, and readily accepted peace without the imposition of terms on either side. The new converts, with the doctrine of universal love ringing in their ears, were now to learn something of Christian hate, and, to do them justice, they made very apt pupils. In 1842 some Roman Catholic priests landed and joined the heathen at Bea, among whom they had as much right to be as the Methodist missionaries who had failed to convert them. The mutual recriminations of the rival teachers could not leave their followers unaffected. Religious differences among natives, fostered as they always are by their spiritual guides, invariably lead to political troubles. The heathen chiefs now asserted that they had a right to be independent, and that they would give asylum to any fugitive from the laws promulgated by the king. The priests had set their followers in the road that leads to civil war, and for the misfortunes that overtook them they had only themselves to thank.

On November 14, 1845, King Josiah Tubou died. On his deathbed he summoned Tungi, the representative of the Tui Haatakalaua and the principal heathen chief, and charged him to regard George Taufaahau as his succes-page 356sor. Perhaps his dying wishes would have failed to outweigh the claims of a competitor possessing higher influence with the chiefs whose duty it is to elect the member of the reigning family best fitted to succeed, but there was no such competitor. The two chiefs who had the nearest claims were Mumui, and Maafu, King Josiah's son; but as Tubou-toa's son and Tukuaho's grandson, Taufaahau's rights were unquestioned.

George Taufaahau went through the usual native form of disclaiming any desire to succeed; but resistance to the proffered honour is expected of every candidate. On December 4, 1845, the chiefs from all parts of the kingdom, assembled in the time-honoured grove at Pangai in Hihifo, under the hoary toa-trees that had seen the royal cup placed in the hands of Ngata and his successors in lineal descent for two centuries, and whose roots had been watered with the blood of the avengers of the murdered Tukuaho in the great rebellion of 1799. The state kava-ring was formed; the two hereditary kingmakers took their seats on either side of the king-elect; the kava was poured into the cup; the presiding matabulc proclaimed that this was the kava of Taliai-Tubon, Tui Kanokubolu. George Taufaahau, the warrior, the chief of Haapai and Vavau, was no more; and George Tubou, the champion of the new faith, reigned over all Tonga as his fathers had reigned before him.

King George Tubou, as he will now be called, spent the first years of his reign in cementing his authority. Signs were not wanting that the heathen party had not accepted the new order of things. In 1847 he decided to remove his Court from Nukualofa to Haapai, as a warning to such page 357of the chiefs of Tongatabu who had failed in their respect towards him. He left Tongatabu under the government of the two Hahavea chiefs,—Maafu and Lavaka of Bea,—making them responsible for the maintenance of peace. They, in common with the other chiefs, had taken a pledge not to repair the fortifications of any of the fortresses, and to punish the first chief who should dare to disturb the peace. But as soon as he had left the island they lost no time in repairing the earthworks of Bea. When the news reached the king, he returned to Tonga in a fleet of war-canoes, and summoned the accused chiefs to his presence. They strenuously denied the charge of sedition, and renewed their assurances of loyalty. But the king had scarcely returned to Haapai when they began again to annoy their more loyal neighbours, hoping to goad them into open resistance. The chiefs now petitioned the king to return to Nukualofa, and in July 1851 he acceded to their request. The rebel chiefs now showed their intentions more clearly. They refused to meet the king, and declared their intention of separating themselves from his Government. They had with them some French priests, who have been accused of encouraging them in their resistance. In February 1852 the works of Bea were hurriedly restored, and a collision became inevitable. The quarrel was again a question of the new religion. The heathen had for a time been allowed to follow their own inclinations; but in 1850 Tungi, the son of Maealiuaki, the most influential of their party, joined the Christians, and they saw that they must either follow his example and surrender their influence, or take up arms in the defence of their in-page 358dependence. They were the more ready to adopt the latter alternative since the priests pointed out to them that they would be surrendering not to King George— that they had already done—but to the English missionaries, who had become his Ministers of State as well as of the Gospel.

Before finally taking the field, the king made an effort to induce the priests to leave the rebels—for his foresight told him that any injury they might sustain would afford a pretext for the demands of a foreign Power for indemnity. They refused, however, to leave the fort, probably feeling that the desertion of their friends on the approach of danger would destroy their prestige beyond repair. The courage'they showed in braving the dangers of a siege by a stronger party, with the prospect of the horrors of savage victory at the close, compares favourably with the conduct of their rivals who fled the island in 1840, and deserves something bettor than the sneers that have been heaped upon them by the Wesleyan missionaries.

On March 1st the king distributed muskets among his chiefs, and formally declared war. After two slight skirmishes, a pitched battle was fought near Bea, with considerable loss on both sides, but without decisive result. On the 14th the Roman Catholic Bishop of Samoa arrived in a French ship-of-war to inquire into the cause of the war, and left again with the avowed intention of bringing help for the beleaguered priests from Tahiti. On the 12th of April the king closely invested Bea, by throwing up four earthworks at different points of the fortification, garrisoning them with a total force of 10,000 men. He page 359might probably have taken the place by assault, but for some reason he hesitated from day to day in the hope that the enemy would themselves sue for peace.

Houma meanwhile had resisted all Ata's efforts to carry it by storm, and the king's troops were driven to try the expedient of starving the garrison into submission. Early in July the Houma people sued for peace, and received the king's pardon, sitting before him with ivi-leaves, emblematic of submission, hanging from their necks. Five weeks later a large ship was reported off the anchorage, and the king, supposing it to be the help promised to the enemy from Tahiti, prepared to assault Bea before the French should have time to interfere. But she proved to be H.M.S. Calliope, commanded by Sir Everard Home, who offered his services to the king as mediator with his enemies. Terms were again sent to the enemy by four chiefs of high rank,—that the lives of the entire garrisou should be spared, on the condition that the fort should be given over to pillage and destruction. But the enemy distrusted the faith of the king's troops, and asked fur one of the missionaries and the king's son as hostages for their safety. To this the king would not consent, and the negotiations threatened to break down when news reached Nukualofa that the principal chiefs had left the fortress, and that the royal forces were sacking the place. The king, accompanied by Sir Everard Home, set off for Bea in hot haste, and traversed the four intervening miles almost at a run. They arrived just in time to prevent the victors, drunken with the excitement of rapine, from proceeding to outrage. The town was in flames, and the priests were threatened with rough treatment. By the page 360king's efforts they were removed to a place of safety, and their property was dragged out of their burning houses. Lavaka, Maafu, and Tubouleva were Pardoned, and they forthwith renounced both heathenism and the Christianity of the Roman Church, which the Protestant chronicler naively classes together. Thus ended in second Wesleyan crusade, and Protestantism, sustained by the musket and the club, was again triumphant.

In the following November the long-expected help from Tahiti arrived in the person of Captain Belland of the Imperial frigate Moselle. A formal inquiry was held to investigate the charges brought by the priests and the captain of a French whaler; and the French commander, while acquitting the king of responsibility for any injury sustained by the priests, warned him against allowing his zeal to blind him to the right of his subjects to entire freedom of conscience. In closing the inquiry he said to the interpreter, "Tell him that I have known many chiefs in the South Seas, but I have never met his equal."

Relieved of his anxieties at home, King George had now the leisure to consider his long-eherished scheme of travelling abroad. More than once in his youth he had almost yielded to a temptation, to ship before the mast in one of the passing whalers that made Tonga their annual port of call. Had he done so, the history of his country would have been different, but he was reserved for higher things. His mind naturally turned to Fiji, where a new kingdom had been unexpectedly won for him. The number of Tongans settled in Fiji had grown into a standing menace to the peace of Tonga. Any disaffected chief might recruit an army of free-lances there, well trained in page 361arms, and return to Tonga as an invader. The only safeguard against this was to set a chief over them who would find an outlet for their restless energy in Fiji itself. Fiji would be, moreover, a vent for the disaffection of a number of his own subjects, who would he glad enough to become exiles with the brilliant prospect of conquest and booty before them. The man lay ready to hand. Maafu, the son of his predecessor, had all the qualities for a leader of such an expedition. He had, besides, a strong claim to the succession, and would be made the figurehead of any rebellion that might be launched against the throne by the heathen party. An expedition was soon fitted out, and early in 1848 Maafu, at the head of a strong and numerous following, set sail for Lakemba. During the next five years he fought his way into the supremacy of the whole of the Lau group, wresting the power from the hands of Tui Nayau, and vesting the lands in his principal followers. Maafu, accustomed to the Tongau system of land tenure, did for Fiji what the British Government has never had the courage to do. He cut the Gordian knot of boundary disputes by dividing out the communal lands into small individual holdings, and securing them to the grantees with a strong hand. He did not, moreover, allow his Fijian subjects to alienate an inch of land to Europeans except on lease. He was a student of history. Asked by what right he divided the lands of the Fijians, he replied sardonically, "I am King William—William the Conqueror!" Having established settled government upon, the Tongan model, he turned his eyes westward, and threatened the powerful chieftaincies of Bau, Thakaundrove, and Mathuata. The cession page 362of Fiji to England reduced him from the position of an independent viceroy to that of a pensioner of the British Government. Deprived of all stimulus to activity, he became demoralised, took to drink, and died in 1880.

Affairs stood thus when, in 1853, King George embarked for Sydney in the mission brig John Wesley. The ship dropped anchor at Bau, and King George met Thakombau and formed the alliance that ultimately brought about the annexation of the group by England. The Fijian chief promised him the canoe Ra Marama, the largest craft afloat, if the king would visit him to bring her away. His power was already waning, and he hoped that, his alliance with the Tongan king, whose name was become a terror throughout the group, would cow his enemy Ratu Mara.

Sydney made a deep impression upon George's mind. His questions were unending. Nothing escaped him, from the form of legislature to the uniforms of the policemen. One fact, indeed, he lost no time in applying to his own country, and to it is due the present independence of the kingdom of foreign interference. European settlers had already been pressing him to sell land to them, and he had resisted hitherto, feeling that it would give them a status in the country that would sooner or later affect his own independence. He now found that in Sydney land could be granted to a stranger without passing out of the hand of its real owner. He resolved that not a rood of Tongan land should be alienated except upon lease, and he kept his resolution.

On his return to Tonga he wrote to Thakombau the letter that induced him to accept the missionaries' teach-page 363ings which he had so long rejected, and he then made his preparations for the visit he had promised. His fleet consisted of thirty sail of double canoes, manned by many hundreds of warriors. He had no intention of joining in any of the local wars, but he knew the necessity of being independent of the protection of his host, whose power, he knew, was not undisputed. From Moturiki he despatched a canoe to Ovalau, commanded by Tavake, one of his own relations. Before the canoe could reach the shore it was fired upon by the natives, who were at the time in alliance with Ratu Mara, Thakombau's revolted brother. Tavake was killed, and the canoe hastened back to the king with the news. The murderer could not be captured without a general attack upon Ovalau and a war with the whites, who sided with Mara, and would not surrender the murderer to any ally of Thakombau. King George therefore resolved to join Thakombau in an attack upon the fortress of Kamba on the mainland, where the enemy were massed in force. Thakombau's fortunes were now at the lowest ebb. If he failed in reducing Kamba, his fate was sealed. His enemies had hemmed him in; his vassals had revolted; even his own town, filled with his own relations, was against him, and in open communication with the enemy. His conversion to Christianity had alienated many of those who still clung to him, and his only hope lay in his Tongan allies.

On the 7th of April 1853 the allied armies landed on the peninsula. A party of Tongans was despatched to reconnoitre the fort, and they had scarcely left the main body when news came that they were engaged with the enemy. The rest of the Tongans advanced to the attack, page 364dashed against the stockade, and after a few minutes' hand-to-hand fighting the enemy were in full flight, and Kamba, invincible to Fijian methods of warfare, was in flames. None of their Fijian allies appeared until the looting had begun. With the fall of Kamba the heart of Mara's rebellion was crushed, and Thakombau recovered his prestige. Had King George failed him, Bau would have fallen, and the cession of the country to England, which Thakombau brought about, might never have taken place. Before leaving the group, King George made a tour through some of the heathen islands to urge upon the chiefs the adoption of Christianity. Traces of this expedition may still be seen in the wavy seal-like hair of some of the natives of Kandavu and Vatulele, who were born shortly after the departure of the Tongans.

After settling the policy to be adopted by Maafu in Lau, the king set sail for Tonga. He found the Governor of Tahiti, M. du Bouzet, awaiting his return with a treaty ready for his signature, which was so worded as to give the French priests the fullest liberty of action. It was then, the policy of the Empire, as it is now of the Republic, to lend the Church the powers of the State abroad while ignoring her claims at home.

To this point, in spite of the bloodshed the introduction of Christianity had cost, the missionaries' influence had been for good; but from the king's return from Fiji they felt their position to be secure, and they began to abuse their power by meddling in the affairs of the State. They were burning with a desire for radical reform: they panted to see their flock enjoying the sweets of constitutional government. Mr St Julian, the King of Hawaii's Mayor page 365of the Palace, heaving persuaded his own patron to bow down before the freedom-god, wrote a flattering letter to the Tongan missionaries to enlist them in the same holy cause. The king, to his credit be it said, long resisted, objecting that his people were not ready for such reforms; that, though in Sydney it might be well to curtail the power of the chiefs, the Tongans would use their new liberty for the indulgence of their natural idleness. But in 1862 he was over persuaded, and a Constitution was granted which swept away the form of government which had taken centuries to elaborate, and substituted executive machinery on the English plan. A system evolved from centuries of experiment to suit the needs of Anglo-Saxons was forced in a single day upon a handful of ignorant Orientals, with whose inborn convictions it was in complete antagonism. The Konisitutone became thenceforth the fetish of the Tongan people. Most of them did not know what it was, but it had been introduced by the missionaries, and was intimately connected, they believed, with its outlandish fellow Konisienisi (Conscience), and in some mysterious way it elevated their country to the level of one of the Great Powers. It was not until after the feasting and the speech-making and the ecstatic sermons of the black-coated missionaries that the chiefs had time to realise that they had sold their birthright for a sheet of vellum, and that their power was gone. It was a heavy price to pay for being sivilaisi.

The power of the missionaries was, now at its height. The king had no other advisers, and it was natural that he should rely upon them. The early indifference to their teachings had given place to an almost hysterical en-page 366thusiasm. They had scarcely to ask for contributions— the emulation among their congregations filled the mission oil-tanks—-and they, too, began to be astonished at their own moderation. As the king's advisers they now began to dabble in polices. They designed a Royal Standard with doves and crossed swords, and other un-Polynesian devices; they ordered a Crown and a Great Seal; they taught the officers of State to pace the beach in English military uniforms; they encouraged the women to disfigure themselves with bonnets and European dress. They had laboured hard, and if they now complaccntly accepted the blind adoration of their flock, it was but human nature.

But there was one among the new converts who was less blind than his teachers. One of the missionaries was leaving the group, and the villages for miles round assembled to take leave of him. A vast pile of mats, cloth, and other native property was heaped up before the smiling clergyman: the excitement was hysterical. Tungi, the latest convert, was curiously watching the scene with a companion by his side. "Uiliame," he said, "do you remember how they treated Mr—when he came, how they stole his things and insulted him, and do you see them now? They are dying of love for him, Uiliame; yet I think that you and I will live to see the time when their love will be turned into hate. This will not last for long, Uiliame; their minds are too hot." Uiliame re membered these words twenty years later, when he saw an angry crowd assembled outside the mission-house demanding the bodies of the native, Wesleyans who had taken refuge there, and he told the story as a proof of page 367Tungi's wisdom. But the missionaries had no misgivings. They had learned the fickleness of their people by bitter experience, but in the days of their apotheosis they forgot the law of reaction.

The first cloud was no bigger than a man's hand. For some years the contributions exceeded the needs of the Church in Tonga, and the people asked that the surplus might be spent among them, instead of being swallowed up by impecunious missions in other lands. The hesitation of the Wesleyan Conference in Australia in granting this very reasonable request gave birth to a desire for ecclesiastical self-government. The ignorant but self-effacing missionaries of the early days had made way for a very different stamp of man, not less ignorant, perhaps, but far better versed in the affairs of the world. The modern missionary was not called to the post owing to any inward conviction: he took up the work as he would any other profession, and he aimed at the aggrandisemeni of the Church of which he was a member, rather than the ultimate good of the people committed to his care. He saw that the moving spirit of the Tongan mind was display and emulation, and he skilfully adapted it to the needs of the collection-plate. The chairman was now Mr. Baker, a plausible and not over-scrupulous man, half-educated, but possessed of considerable knowledge of the world. Little by little he brought the king to look to him for advice in secular matters. The secret of his influence was the king's fear of losing his independence. Mr Baker worked upon this fear, representing England as only waiting for an opportunity to seize the country as she had done in Fiji. It was only by following his advice page 368that these nefarious designs could be frustrated. He now began to play into the hands of Germany, thinking that he would flatter the king by negotiating a treaty with one of the Great Powers. He approached the German Consul-General in Samoa, and found him readdy to treat with him for a fair price—namely, the cession of a coaling-station in the unequalled harbour of Vavau. On the 1st of November 1876 the native plenipotentiaries, with their reverend interpreter, proceeded to a German ship-of-war to sign the treaty that had been prepared for them. It was read, and when the passage about the coaling-station was reached Tungi objected that he would like to consult the king before signing such a clause, but the German commander sternly told him that it was all settled, and that it was too late to withdraw. So the treaty was signed, and the coaling-station ceded "without prejudice to the rights of sovereignty of the King of Tonga," and the "interpreter" received a decoration from the Emperor of Germany for the trouble he had taken in the matter.

I have now brought this sketch to the point of the establishment of the Free Church, whence I have traced it in the opening chapters of this volume. For those who have heard of King George only as a persecutor, or as a sovereign ruled by his own Minister, owe it to the and to his memory to give at least an equal prominence in their minds to the story of his early career.

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