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Early one morning in October, 1804, the American ship Union sailed in through Sydney Heads, and dropped anchor in the Cove. She was last from Tongatabu, the principal island of the Friendly Group.
There were numerous Christians in Samoa before Malietoa became one; and services had been, held in Tongatabu before any of the chief men turned to the faith; and already numerous churches had been established in Fiji before Thakombau, the most despotic and fierce of the rulers of the isles of the Pacific, bowed his knee in worship to the true God.
The group of islands, at one of which the ships now were, was called the Tonga Islands; but Cook, from the treatment he received, named them the Friendly Islands, by which name they are now generally known. Tasman, who discovered them in 1642-3, named the two principal islands Amsterdam and Middleburg. The former is called by the natives Tongatabu, or the Great Tonga; the latter Ea-oo-we.
On 6th June they sailed for Tongatabu again, accompanied by some sailing canoes which could all easily outdistance the two ships. A good anchorage was found, and Cook's old friends, Otago and Toobough, were soon on board to greet them.
He sprang on shore, loosened the iron chain which fastened the boat, and had only time to exclaim, Fly, fly! ere he was seized and murdered by the savages. This melancholy occurrence discouraged the fugitives from touching at Tongatabu, or any other island inhabited by savages.
Remembering where I was, I expressed myself in terms that were gentle though austere regarding the King, and reproved the supineness and stupidity of the Crown Prince. Lamenting the departed puissance of the sons of Tongatabu, I warmed to my subject, telling this savage who looked at me with so neutral a countenance how much I deplored the decadence of his race.
In August, 1804, the American whaler Union, of Nantucket, after having refreshed at Sydney Cove, as Port Jackson was then called, sailed on a sperm-whaling cruise among the South Sea Islands. She arrived at Tongatabu on the last day of September.
There are other volcanic islands to the north, belonging to the group, not then known. Leaving Ea-oo-we, or Middleburg, the ships ran down to Tongatabu, keeping about half a mile from the shore, on which the sea broke with a heavy surf.
The London Missionary Society was established in 1795, and in the following year it sent forth, on board the Duff, a band of twenty-nine missionaries, who landed at Tahiti, one of the Society Islands, March, 1797. Some went on to Tongatabu, the chief of the Friendly Islands, and two to Christina, one of the Marquesas.
You have heard how a body of missionaries so far back as 1797 were landed at Tongatabu, from the ship Duffy by Captain Wilson. They were all ultimately compelled to leave the island, very much in consequence of the conduct of some white runaway seamen or convicts, who set the natives against them.
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