They began their labours upon an extensive scale. They purchased a ship, and sent out twenty-five labourers to commence missions simultaneously at the Marquesan, Tahitian, and Friendly Islands.
The following is the account given of the reception of this band of Christian evangelists:—
“On March 7, 1797, the first missionaries from the Duff went on shore, and were met on the beach by the king, Pomare, and his queen. By them they were kindly welcomed, as well as by Paitia, an aged chief of the district. They were conducted to a large, oval-shaped native house, which has been but recently finished for Captain Bligh, whom they expected to return. Their dwelling was pleasantly situated on the western side of the river, near the extremity of Point Venus. The islanders were delighted to behold foreigners coming to take up their permanent residence among them, as those they had heretofore seen had been transient visitors.
“The inhabitants of Tahiti, having never seen any European females or children, were filled with amazement and delight when the wives and children of the missionaries landed. Several times during the first days of their residence on shore large parties arrived from different places, in front of the house, requesting that the white women and children would come to the door and show themselves. The chiefs and people were not satisfied with giving them the large and commodious ‘Fare Beritani’ (British house), as they called the one they had built for Captain Bligh, but readily and cheerfully ceded to Captain Wilson and the missionaries, in an official and formal manner, the district of Matavai, in which their habitation was situated. The king and queen, with other branches of the royal family, and the most influential persons in the nation, were present; and Haamanemane, an aged chief of Raiatea, and chief priest of Tahiti, was the principal agent for the natives on this occasion.
“Whatever advantages the king or chiefs might expect to derive from this settlement on the island, it must not be supposed that any desire to receive moral or religious instruction formed a part. A desire to possess European property, and to receive the assistance of the Europeans in the exercise of the mechanical arts or in their wars, was probably the motive by which the natives were most strongly influenced.
“Having landed ten missionaries at Tongataboo, in the Friendly Islands, Captain Wilson visited and surveyed several of the Marquesan Islands, and left Mr Crook, a missionary, there. He then returned to Tahiti, and on July 6 the Duff again anchored in Matavai Bay. The health of the missionaries had not been affected by the climate. The conduct of the natives had been friendly and respectful, and supplies in abundance had been furnished during his absence. On August 4, 1797, the Duff finally sailed from the bay. The missionaries returning from the ship, as well as those on shore, watched her course, as she slowly receded from their view, under no ordinary sensations. They now felt that they were cut off from all but Divine guidance, protection, and support, and had parted with those by whose counsels and presence they had been assisted in entering upon their labours, but whom, on earth, they did not expect to meet again.
“Their acquaintance with the most useful of the mechanic arts not only delighted the natives, but raised the missionaries in their estimation, and led them to desire their friendship. This was strikingly evinced on several occasions, when they beheld them use their carpenters’ tools, cut with a saw a number of boards out of a tree, which they had never thought it possible to split into more than two, and make with these chests and articles of furniture. When they beheld a boat built, upwards of twenty feet long and six tons burden, they were pleased and surprised; but when the blacksmith’s shop was erected, and the forge and anvil were first employed on their shores, they were filled with astonishment. When the heated iron was hammered on the anvil, and the sparks flew among them, they fancied it was spitting at them, and were frightened, as they also were with the hissing occasioned by immersing it in water; yet they were delighted to see the facility with which a bar of iron was thus converted into hatchets, adzes, fish-spears, fish-hooks, and other things. Pomare, entering one day when the blacksmith was employed, after gazing a few minutes at the work, was so transported at what he saw that he caught up the smith in his arms, and, unmindful of the dirt and perspiration inseparable from his occupation, most cordially embraced him, and saluted him, according to the custom of his country, by touching noses.” (Abridged from Polynesian Researches, by the Rev. W. Ellis.)
It is not to be wondered at that the favourable reports sent home by these missionaries encouraged those who received them to believe that almost all difficulties had already been, or were in a fair way of being speedily overcome, and that these distant islands were, to use the figurative language of Scripture, “stretching out their hands unto God.” They did not know—it was wisely and mercifully hidden from them—that a long night of toil had yet to be passed before the dawn of that better day they longed to see, and for which they prayed and strove.
“Decisive and extensive as the change has since become,” says the writer just quoted, “it was long before any salutary effects appeared as the result of their endeavours; and although the scene is now one of loveliness and quietude, cheerful, yet placid as the smooth waters of the bay, it has often worn a very different aspect. Here the first missionaries frequently heard the song accompanying the licentious areois dance, the deafening noise of the worship, and saw the human victim carried by for sacrifice. Here, too, they often heard the startling cry of war, and saw their frightened neighbours fly before the murderous spear and plundering hand of lawless power. The invader’s torch reduced the native hut to ashes, while the lurid flame seared the green foliage of the trees, and clouds of smoke, rising up among their groves, darkened, for a time, surrounding objects. On such occasions, and they were not infrequent, the contrast between the country and the inhabitants must have been most affecting; appearing as if the demons of darkness had lighted up infernal fires in the bowers of paradise.”
These representations probably did not reach England until after the missionaries had been some time in the islands, and meanwhile the ship Duff was sent out a second time, with a strong reinforcement of thirty additional labourers.