If we could suppose a ship from El Dorado to arrive in the Thames, and that the custom-house officers, on boarding her, found themselves in the midst of bolts, hatchets, chisels, all of solid gold, scattered about the deck, one need scarcely say what would be likely to happen.

If the former found the temptation irresistible to supply himself with what was essentially useful--the latter would be as little able to resist that which would contribute to the indulgence of his avarice or the gratification of his pleasures, or of both.
Such was the state of this beautiful island and its interesting and fascinating natives at the time when Captain Wallis first discovered and Lieutenant Cook shortly afterwards visited it.

What they now are, as described by Captain Beechey, it is lamentable to reflect.

All their usual and innocent amusements have been denounced by the missionaries, and, in lieu of them, these poor people have been driven to seek for resources in habits of indolence and apathy: that simplicity of character, which atoned for many of their faults, has been converted into cunning and hypocrisy; and drunkenness, poverty, and disease have thinned the island of its former population to a frightful degree.

By a survey of the first missionaries, and a census of the inhabitants, taken in 1797, the population was estimated at 16,050 souls; Captain Waldegrave, in 1830, states it, on the authority of a census also taken by the missionaries, to amount only to 5000--and there is but too much reason to ascribe this diminution to praying, psalm-singing, and dram-drinking.[3] The island of Otaheite is in shape two circles united by a low and narrow isthmus.