Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/28

xx give them, viz. "Tonga" or, the Tonga Islands.

As I presume it would be unnecessary to offer any apologies for presenting to the public the following account of a people, of whose government, religion, customs, and language, so little has hitherto been published, I shall proceed at once to give a simple statement of the circumstances which first gave rise to it, and the authority under which it has been conducted.

In the year 1811 I accidentally heard that Mr. William Mariner, the bearer of a letter from the East Indies to one of my connections in London, had been a