public some circumstances which you have compelled us to disclose, by a refusal of that justice to Mr. Ellis, and his benevolent co-adjutors, to which honourable men are entitled, and which they will always receive from honourable minds.

"The impression made by your article on a distinguished noblemen, whose character and friendly offices to the cause of religion are well known, was such, that he deemed it desirable to bring about an interview between one of your friends and Mr. Ellis, to furnish an opportunity for explanation. In consequence of that interview, Mr. Ellis received the following

note:

"Dear sir-I have just received the reply of the editor of the Quarterly Review, who states, that he can hardly think the Admiralty are deceived as to the authenticity of Boki's letter; but if you can shew it to be so, it will afford him satisfaction to insert your proposed note in the Quarterly.

"Upon this encouragement, I would recommend you to lose no time in drawing up a clear and exact statement of the proofs, in refutation of whatever you deem to be unjustly advanced against the missionary cause in the Sandwich Islands. The paper should be limited to the contents of two printed pages; and transmit it to J. G. Lockhart, Esq. at Mr. Murray's, Albemarle Strect.

"It is desirable that it should appear in the forthcoming number; and, I think, you would do well to offer Mr. Lockhart an inspection of any original documents you possess, in attestation of your state

ment.

"It will afford me great pleasure to find, that in thus facilitating your communication with the Quarterly, the cause which you have so zealously supported, should be justified in the public opinion.'

"This invitation was immediately complied with, and a letter, of which the following is a copy, was forwarded without delay, with an offer on the part of Mr. Ellis, to meet the editor, and furnish him with additional evidence of the incorrectness of his statements. if required.

"Sir-While 1 feel obliged by the notice of my volume on the Sandwich Islands, in the last number of the Quarterly Review, I am bound in justice to myself and to my missionary associates, as well as to the public, to correct several of the unfounded statements which that article contains.

"In the article above referred to, it is stated, that by my own account, the subjects usually chosen for the discourses are the most unsuitable; such, for instance, as the Virgin Mary, the imma culate Conception, the Trinity, and the Holy Ghost: That we hold out to our disciples little or no encouragement, either by precept or example, to industrious habits; that the least that is required

·

from the naked, or half naked converts of Owhyhee, is to attend at church five times every day;'-'that on Sunday they are strictly prohibited from cooking any kind of victuals, or even lighting a fire;'-that the efforts of the zealous few missionaries are tending, as fast as possible, to lay waste the whole country, and plunge the inhabitants into civil war and bloodshed; '- that thousands of acres of land, that before yielded the finest crops are now sandy plains; ' that the apprehension of civil war ap pears to be owing to the misapplication of a passage of Scripture (which by the way does not exist in the Bible), applied and expounded by the missionaries, and that the effect it had produced, in lowering the authority of the chiefs, was visible enough: That,' at Tahiti, it is lamentable to observe the change that has taken place among the natives, who ap pear to have lost the good qualities they once possessed,' and are become intolerably lazy;' that the looms that were sent out, have been thrown aside, and weaving discontinued.'At Tobuai,' it is also said, that the indolence of the natives since their conversion has been such, that out of the whole population but 200 remain.'

"These assertions, unsupported by any thing contained in my volume, though some are said to appear from my own account,' are utterly unfounded, and have nothing corresponding to them in the existing circumstances of the islands, or the conduct of the missionaries; and I am in possession of such evidence in support of this contradiction, as I cannot doubt would satisfy you that the writer of this article has been misled by the evidence on which he has depended. I will mention only one instance of the inaccuracy of Captain Beechey's information, and the consequent incorrectness of his statements. At Tobuai, he states, that the missionaries have succeeded in abolishing human sacrifices, and the prevailing crime of infanticide,' when it is a fact that neither infanticide, nor the custom of offering human sacrifices, ever existed in that island.

"The letter inserted as a 'note to the article on the Sandwich islanders,' bears strong indication of being spurious; and I cannot but suspect that an imposition has been practised upon the British Admiral, to whom it was sent. Boki, (who was my scholar until his embarkation for England,) was never taught to write English, and probably never attempted it. The style of his sentiments, and the structure of his sentences would have been totally different. To take an opportunity,' is a phrase which would have been unintelligible to him. The commencement of the letter is a close imitation of the manner of letter-writers of the lower orders in this country, and has no resemblance to the native habits of thinking and expres

6

sion. The phraseology throughout is foreign. No native of the Sandwich Islands would have any idea of going through four operations. They never speak of a king as the head of a nation, a general as the head of an army, or a father as the head of a family. Had Boki wished to describe Mr. Bingham as (we should say) the head of the mission, he would have called him the chief of the mission. The facts of the letter contradict themselves. Boki, with his brother, Karaimoku, exercises the supreme authority in the islands; and if it had been his desire that Mr. Bingham should have left the islands, his command would have been sufficient to have enforced, at any time, compliance with his wishes. The orthography, in many instances, is certainly such as Boki would not employ. Had he written the letter, he would surely have spelt his own name correctly, according to the orthography established by the printing-press in the islands, yet in the last paragraph of the copy sent to England, with a sight of which I have been favoured, Mrs. Boki's name is spelt Bockey. Besides this incorrectness, here are two letters, viz. c and y, introduced, which do not exist in their language. In the next line, Boki's own name is spelt Boke, but in your Review both these names are altered, and appear as if they had been properly written Boki.

"In addition to the above brief statement of the evidence, that the letter was neither written nor dictated by Boki, I have evidence on his own testimony, dated only three months before the letter is said to have been written. I have also letters of a later date from missionaries and chiefs, containing very different statements. Boki, in his last letter to me, under date of October 1825, observes,All is smooth and straight here, I am making myself strong in the word of God. Turned have the chiefs to instruction. I speak unto them and encourage them concerning the word of God, that it may be well with our land.'

“Without referring to all the topics alluded to in the letter, I feel myself called upon to state, that from habits of close friendship with Mr. Bingham, and an intimate acquaintance with his principles and conduct, I cannot for a moment suppose he has in any manner interfered with the civil or political affairs of the islands. I am, sir, most respectfully your's,

(Signed) "W. ELLIS." "Had you inserted this document, it would probably have terminated the discussion, although many things in your article were passed without notice, in consequence of the limits which had been prescribed.

66

The reader will participate in the feelings which must have been experienced by Mr. Ellis and his friends, when in your last number, instead of redeeming

your promise, you insert the following

note:

"We have received a letter from Mr. Ellis (the missionary), in which he tells us that the Letter from Boki,' quoted in the last page of our last number, is a forgery. In answer to this, we can only assure Mr. Ellis that the letter certainly did come from the Sandwich Islands; that its genuineness neither has been, nor is, doubted, either by the officer of the Blonde who received it, or by his captain; and that the gentlemen of that ship generally concur in stating the tenour of the letter to be in perfect accordance with the sentiments which Boki was in the habit of expressing to them while they were in his society. We can easily believe that Mr. Boki may not have been in the habit of writing, or even of speaking his mind quite so openly-to Mr. Ellis.'

"In this note you repeat the original injury, and conceal from your readers that Mr. Ellis's letter was chiefly a contradiction of the misrepresentations contained in your own article. You re-assert that the letter said to be written by Boki, came from the islands, which had not been disputed; and that its genuineness was not doubted by the person who received it. All this, sir, is nothing to the purpose. Why did you not lay before the public Mr. Ellis's objections to its genuineness? Candour and justice required this. Your readers would then have instantly perceived that Boki could not have written the letter which has been palmed on the public as his; and that Mr. Ellis's simple statement completely exposes the fraud which must have been practised by some designing individual.

Here I might properly rest the defence of the missions in the Pacific, again the charges which you have brought for ward. The testimony of Mr. Ellis, in point of truth, will, by all impartial men, be considered as at least equally deserving of regard with that of Captain Beechey; and as it respects the means of knowing the real state of the facts, the two witnesses will not admit of being compared together. But, as the opportunity is presented, it may be proper to enter into some details respecting the propagation of Christianity in the islands which have called forth these remarks; and to notice many things which Mr. Ellis's letter passes

over.'

We shall not be ableto follow Mr. Orme through all these items; but we recommend those of our readers who may be inclined to build their opinions upon the assertions of the Quarterly Review, to read the book for themselves. We

may extract a few particulars in another Number. In the mean time we conclude with the following attestation to the character of these calumniated mis sionaries, which we copy from the New

sionaries, and many of them profess religion; and that this is the great cause of the opposition from foreigners. They are disturbed and restrained in their unlawful and licentious courses; and it is very natural to suppose that the restraints thus imposed upon their wicked indul

gences by the light of civilization and Christianity, diffused among the natives by the missionaries, would awaken the hostility of the unprincipled and profligate to the cause of religion, and occasion the missionaries themselves to become the objects of their hatred and vituperation."

FOREIGN.

PORTUGAL. The emperor Don Pedro has placed Don Miguel at the head of the government, to administer the affairs of the kingdom according to the provisions of the charter. Don Miguel is, however, so much opposed to the new constitution, that it seems doubtful what line of conduct he will adopt. If he should be induced, as well he may be, especially after witnessing the fatal example of the king of Spain, to yield up his early prejudices to a wise and enlightened policy, thus consulting not less his own interest than the interests of his country at large, Portugal will long have to rejoice at the accession of such a mediating and healing influence. But should he persist in his opposition to a constitutional government, we see no alternative but either an abrogation of the charter, or a fierce and long-continued struggle between the hostile parties in the state, each side perhaps encouraged by foreign countenance, and which, terminating as it may, either for liberty or despotism, must in the mean time inflict upon the country all the horrors which attend a protracted civil discord.

SPAIN.—The king continues his crusade against his ultra-royalist subjects, whom, however, he has vanquished in several skirmishes,and,as he states,reduced to submission; though he is still on his march, and accounts continue to arrive of partial contests, which do not quite dove-tail with his majesty's veni, vidi, vici details. We are happy however, for the sake of our common humanity, in whatever cause engaged, to find that he is more liberal in his amnesty to these super-royal rebels than he has ever been to the abettors of the late Constitution; and that he forbids every kind of taunt, whether by word or gesture, to those who lay down their arms and return to their allegiance. He is stated also to have summoned to his presence, the chief ecclesiastical authorities in the disturbed districts, and to

have held them responsible for the good conduct of their faithful children, who wished to be more kingly in their notions than the king.

GREECE AND TURKEY.-The timely interposition of the Christian allies has, we rejoice to learn, prevented the meditated attack of the Egyptian fleet, under the Pacha Ibrahim, upon Greece; and the last reports state, that the Turkish government has shewn an inclination to accept the offered mediation for arranging the affairs of Greece upon a just and honourable basis. Negotiations are stated to be in progress for the accomplishment of this most desirable object.

DOMESTIC.

There is no immediate domestic intelligence which requires our notice, but our slave colonies still continue to be subjects of powerful, though distressing interest. Our readers will recollect that, in the session of 1826, Mr. Canning in the house of commons, and Lord Bathurst in the house of lords, stated that bills for the amelioration of the state of slavery, grounded upon the Trinidad Order in Council, would be sent out to the governors of the West-India colonies for the consideration of the legislative bodies; which government had trusted would be attended with a successful result; but if otherwise, it would be for the imperial parliament to consider what measures would be expedient to carry the intentions of government into effect. The proposed enactments, and the reception they have met with from the colonial legislatures, are contained in a bulky folio presented to parliament at the close of the last session, when it was too late for the legislature to take the matter into consideration. A lucid, and sufficiently copious, analysis of these papers has just been given to the public, (see our List of New Publications,) to which we would strong'y direct the attention of those of our readers who are interested in the details of this great question. Our own notice of it must

be very brief; but we will give, from the above analysis, a few illustrations, sufficiently characteristic to enlighten them upon the whole subject.

It is necessary to remind our readers, that the Trinidad Order in Council itself, which is made a sort of standard for the amelioration of slavery throughout the colonies, is far from embodying all that his Majesty's Government at first held out to the expectation of parliament and the public, and much farther still from embracing all that the exigencies of the case demanded. It comprises no provisions whatever either for the education or religious instruction of the slaves. It does not abolish Sunday markets, but continues to sanction then. It does not allow to the slave, as was stipulated, equivalent time, in lieu of Sunday, for raising food and for marketing. The evidence of slaves is not admitted, without such limitations as almost to destroy the efficiency of the measure. The slave continues debarred, under heavy penalties, from raising or vending any article of exportable produce. The separation of families by sale is not prohibited, except in the single case of judicial sales. Slaves may still be sold detached from the estate to which they belong. No record, as respects arbitrary punishments by the master, is required, except in the case of plantation slaves. The protector of slaves himself may hold personal slaves to any amount in his own, and slave plantations in every other colony; and the assistant protectors may possess slaves, whether predial or domestic, without any limitation. And besides these deviations from the course which it was originally proposed to pursue, there are some other points materially affecting the happiness of the slave, which are wholly omitted. One is, that the hours of labour are not fixed; another, that the order sanctions the cruel and unjust principle of authorizing the infliction of severe corporal chastisement on the complaining slave, who, under all his disadvantages as a witness, shall not have proved the truth of his complaint. To which we may add, that however excellent may have been the intention of the framers of the regulations in the Trinidad Order, respecting manumission, they have failed in guarding them from most enormous abuses. The colonial appraisers have found a way, at no greater expense than a false oath, of defeating the object, by affixing upon the slave a preposterous nominal value, which no man in the colonies would for a moment think of giving for him.

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 310.

Yet, imperfect as are these regulations, in what manner have the colonists acted upon them? In what spirit have they responded to the most solemn wishes and remonstrances of the British Government and Legislature? to the unanimous voice of their countrymen at home, and the still louder voice of common humanity? To answer this question, we refer to the parliamentary documents above alluded to; or, as these are voluminous, and in comparatively few hands, to the abovementioned analysis of them. We can, however, answer it in one sentence; for some of the islands have done nothing, literally nothing; others have done next to nothing, having made a shew of legislating, but with a very scanty measure of substantial and efficient improvement; and others have done worse than nothing, for they have added contumely to defiance; they have spurned and scouted the suggestions of his Majesty's Government, and heaped every species of ridicule and contempt upon their authors and abettors. The analysis gives the details in the alphabetical order of the islands. First there is Antigua, respecting which we learn that its legislature have done nothing. Then follow the Bahamas, which have rejected all the eight bills proposed by his Majesty's Government, and passed one bill of their

own.

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