Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/60

lii qualifications as a narrator, it remains to furnish a short account of the advantageous opportunities which fell in his way. In the first place, it must be stated, that he was by far the best educated of all those who survived the capture of the Port au Prince. From the first moment the king of the Tonga islands saw him, he conceived a strong prejudice in his favour, and gave orders to those who had the management of the conspiracy, that if they should find it necessary to make a great slaughter, they were nevertheless to preserve his life;—this was the commencement of a friendship which lasted till the king's death: he gave him a residence within his own fencing; appointed one of his wives, a very sensible and well informed woman, to be his adopted mother, that she might employ her time in instructing him in the language and exact customs of the country: he admitted him to all his conferences with his chiefs, priests, and matabooles: at length he adopted him as his own son, and gave him the name of a favourite son, (Togi Oocumméa), who had