Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

1835. EFFECTS OF MISSIONARY EXERTION. 613 prevented by the presence and active exertions of missionaries, during the last twenty years, in which French, Russian, Ame- rican, and English intercourse with the Pacific, has so much increased. Under the colours of the United States, and of our own country, more than five hundred sail of vessels have b2en annually employed in the Pacific, during late years. To obtain refreshments and supplies, such as I have mentioned, only those islands on which there are white or native missio- naries, are considered safe for single merchant ships. But even while profiting by the influence of the missionaries, and assisted by them in their intercourse with the natives, men who belong to tliose very ships hesitate not, in many in- stances (but not in all), to ridicule the means by which the missionary has gained his influence — to encourage immorality, and the use of ardent spirits, and to seek for faults in a system, as well as in the behaviour of individuals according to that system, because it has a tendency to limit the indulgence and expose the impropriety of their own unrestrained misconduct. If the opponents of missionaries could be prejudiced so far as to allow no other good character to have been earned by those hardworking men, they can never deny them that of peace- makers. Many sailors have left their ships, and settled for life, upon various islands. Though generally immoral, some of these men have established a character among the islanders, so very different from that of the convicts, that persons who understand the native descriptions are seldom deceived in their estimation of a man who, they hear, has recently settled in any place. Some of these seamen have astonished the New Zealanders, and even men of the Feejee Islands, by hardy courage in war- like enterprises. One, known by the name of Charles, has been already mentioned as having distinguished himself so much by his activity and daring in wars with other islanders, that he was treated as a chief of very high rank, and allowed to have a hundred wives : while the greatest chieftains had from fifty to a hundred and fifty, according to their rank. There are now said to be upon the southern large island or