Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/126

60 arrive, and learning from them the fate of the Port au Prince, take an ample revenge for the injury done their countrymen: but Finow, fortunately, was not of this opinion; he conceived that white people were of too generous and forgiving a temper to take revenge, and therefore declined doing them any farther mischief. He had probably acquired this favourable idea of us, from observing that Europeans were not accustomed to knock out the brains of those under their command for trifling offences!

As Mr. Mariner had in his possession a few printed books and some writing paper, he was often found by Finow either writing or reading: one day the latter desired him to give up all his books and papers; which, when he had done, with the exception of a journal of the voyage, he had the mortification to find that they were ordered to be burnt. On requiring an explanation of this extraordinary conduct, on the part of a man who appeared on other occasions to be so much his friend, he was informed, through the medium of Tooi Tooi, that the king could not, on any account, allow him to practise witchcraft to the injury of the Tonga people; and that it was well known to the king and many others, that those books and papers were instruments and means of invocation, to bring down some evil or plague upon the country. Mr.