12th December 1835

Captain Fitzroy’s Journal
Before arriving at New Zealand I will add a very brief remark or two about the Navigators, the Friendly, and the Feejee Islands. At the first mentioned, where De Langle and Lamanon were massacred, there is now a prosperous mission established by the exertions of the London Missionary Society, and I hear that a large proportion of the islanders are no longer blood-thirsty savages. At the Friendly Isles much opposition had been encountered, chiefly in consequence of former hostilities brought on by a runaway convict, who excited the natives to murder the first missionaries who went there: and the prejudices then caused are scarcely yet removed. Mariner's account of the Tonga, or Friendly Islands, is considered by English residents at Otaheite, to be a very accurate one, and is full of interesting information. I obtained a few notices of the Feejee group from the owner of a schooner that was lost there; and as they are comparatively little known, my mite may as well be contributed in this place to the general fund.

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