John, along with everyone else, was stirred within as the letters were read, and more so when Tamatoa stood and gave his response. “Let us continue to give our oil and arrowroot to God,” he said, “that the blind may see and the deaf hear. Let us not be weary in this work. We behold the great deep: it is full of sea; it is rough and rugged underneath; but the water makes a plain, smooth surface, so that nothing of its ruggedness is seen. Our lands were rugged and rough with abominable and wicked practices: but the good word of God has made them smooth. Many other countries are now rough and rugged with wickedness and wicked customs. The word of God alone can make these rough places smooth. Let us all be diligent in this good work, till the rugged world is made smooth by the word of God, as the waters cover the ruggedness of the great deep. Let us, above all, be concerned to have our own hearts washed in Jesus’ blood; then God will become our friend, and Jesus our brother.”
The two deacons’ success in Rurutu gave the church a new sense of energy and purpose. Within weeks five hundred people presented themselves to be baptized, and John began planning how to send more of them out as missionaries. He wondered how he could have ever thought there was not enough work for him to do in the Pacific! Now he saw every island as a possibility. According to Chief Auura there were other islands around Rurutu, one of which he said was called Rarotonga. The name stuck in John’s mind, and he determined that one day he would go there himself.
Ironically, soon after John discovered his true calling of teaching and sending out Polynesian missionaries, he became convinced that he would have to leave the islands. This time it had nothing to do with his wanting to give up, but rather it had to do with his health. For the past two years he had noticed his arms and legs swelled up from time to time, but now they were constantly puffy and red. He sometimes found it hard to walk and had to sit for hours with his legs propped up on a chair. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, but he knew he had to go to Sydney, New South Wales, to seek medical attention before the condition got worse.
Just as John was making plans to leave Raiatea, two men, Dr. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet, arrived aboard the Tusan. They were both members of the LMS board in London and had come on a two-year tour of the Pacific islands to gather information for the London Missionary Society on the progress of their missionaries in the region. John gave them a warm welcome. “At last,” he told Mary, “someone from London will understand why we need a ship!”
On November 3, 1821, the Westmoreland lay at anchor in the bay beside the Williamses’ island home. The ship was on its way from London to Sydney, and the captain agreed to take John and Mary Williams and four-year-old John Jr. aboard. The local Christians were upset to think that John was leaving.
“At present,” Tamatoa told John and Lancelot, “we are like a house supported by two strong middle posts; and if one of them is taken away, the house will become weak and will be shaken about by strong winds.”
John knew that what Tamatoa was saying was probably true, but he also knew that if the Raiatean church was to become strong, it would have to learn to look to its own local leaders.
As the Williamses prepared to leave, two more men, Papeiha and Vahapata, volunteered to go partway on the journey with John and Mary and be dropped off at Aitutaki, an island located to the west in the Cook Islands. There they would start a missionary work. The thought that they were taking with them local missionaries whom they had trained made it a little easier for John and Mary to leave the people of Raiatea behind.
After several days of sailing, the Westmoreland dropped anchor off the island of Aitutaki. Unlike Raiatea, this island was flat and stretched along the top of the reef, enclosing a vast lagoon. The highest point on the island was only a few feet above sea level. Within minutes of arriving, the ship was surrounded by canoes filled with local Polynesians. Many in the canoes had tattoos all over their bodies, others were painted with pipe-clay and red and yellow ochre, and still others had charcoal smeared all over them. And the noise they made was deafening. They chanted, yelled, and let out bloodcurdling screams.
Once John had established who the chief was, he invited him aboard. Although the people of Aitutaki did not speak Tahitian, the language they spoke was close enough for John to make himself understood. He told the chief about how the old gods in Raiatea had been destroyed and in their place the islanders now worshiped the true God. He then introduced Papeiha and Vahapata and told the chief that they had come to tell his people about this new God. The chief was very impressed by what John said and agreed that Papeiha and Vahapata could come ashore and live on Aitutaki, where he promised to watch over them.
John watched as the two Raiateans clambered over the side of the ship and climbed into the chief’s canoe. He hoped and prayed that they would experience the same success as the Raiatean missionaries who had gone to Rurutu. And one day, if all went well getting his ailment treated, he would return to Aitutaki and use the island as a jumping-off point to reach Rarotonga with the gospel.
Chapter 7
The Endeavour
John stood on the deck of the Westmoreland as it sailed into Sydney Harbor. It had been more than four years since he was last there, and he was surprised at how much the town had grown.
The Reverend Samuel Marsden welcomed John and Mary back to Sydney. John then settled his wife and son into an LMS guesthouse and set about finding a doctor to treat his swollen legs.
Even before he found a doctor, John noticed that the change of air in Sydney was causing the uncomfortable swelling to go down. Finally he found a doctor who knew what to do. The doctor poked and prodded his inflamed legs and announced that he needed to have the excess fluid drained out of them. After the doctor performed this procedure, John’s health began to improve dramatically, so much so that he no longer worried that his missionary career might be over and that he would need to return to England.
As his health improved, John began to think about going back to Raiatea and picking up his ministry. He also began thinking about things that would aid him in that ministry. And as he thought about it, one thing kept coming to mind—a ship!
John had several reasons for thinking that a ship was a good idea. The two members of the LMS board who had arrived to visit Raiatea just before he left told how the society wanted to encourage the local populations to grow cash crops. This could only mean that the mission society was leaning toward becoming involved in trading, and John felt sure that this time it would understand the need for the missionaries to own their own ship. There were obvious practical advantages to owning a ship rather than hiring one. Owning a ship meant that it would be at the missionaries’ disposal to take produce to Sydney at short notice, and it would save the cost of hiring a vessel. A ship would also provide John and the Christians on Raiatea with the ability to send missionaries to many islands.
There was another advantage to owning their own ship. Most of the ships, especially the whaling ships that visited the islands, caused chaos among the local people. The crews brought rum and whiskey to trade for women. They also brought muskets and diseases. The Polynesian Christians did not like it when hoards of sailors came ashore. But as long as they were dependent on hired ships to transport their goods, they had to accept the mayhem the sailors who manned those ships brought to their islands. If the missionaries had their own ship, there would be no need for other ships to put in at these islands.
Shortly before he left Raiatea, John received word that his mother had died. When he got to Sydney, a letter was waiting, informing him that he had received an inheritance from his mother’s estate. John decided to use this money to buy a ship. He set out to see what vessels were for sale in Sydney. There were few suitable ships available, but eventually he found a ninety-ton schooner named the Endeavour. He would have preferred something larger, but it was the largest of the vessels available, and John decided to pursue purchasing it.
The most delicate part of buying the ship was convincing Samuel Marsden to use London Missionary Society funds to pay for half of it. Because the money from John’s inheritance was enough to cover half the purchase price, John needed the mission to put up the rest of the money. At first Samuel would have nothing to do with the plan. He explained to John that the LMS was not in favor of missionaries or churches owning their own ships. However, as the weeks went by, John took every opportunity to point out the value of such a ship. Eventually Samuel relented and agreed to put up half the money.
John immediately purchased the ship and then sat down to write a letter of explanation to the board of the LMS in London. He wrote: “But we must branch out to the right and to the left; for how can we, in justice to the heathen world, especially to the surrounding islands, confine the labours of so many missionaries to so few people.”
Now that John had a ship, it was time for him to think about what would be the best crops to transport in it. After talking to many sailors in Sydney, he determined that sugar and tobacco would be good for the islanders to produce. Both sugar cane and tobacco should grow easily in the Society Islands, and they both fetched excellent prices in Europe. With this in mind, John hired Andrew Scott, a young man with experience in overseeing the planting and harvesting of these two crops. He agreed to pay Andrew a salary of 150 pounds a year for three years. It was a lot of money, but if Andrew could teach the islanders to grow sugar cane and tobacco, John considered that he would be worth every penny of his salary.
By April 1822, the Endeavour was ready to set sail. On board were supplies of cloth and kettles for the islanders, flour and tea for the missionaries, and several cows and some sheep. The animals were a gift from Sir Thomas Brisbane, the new governor of New South Wales. John was anxious to see whether the animals would adapt to the tropical environment as well as goats had. Sir Thomas also sent along two huge chapel bells and two flags. The flags, one the Union Jack and the other a missionary flag with a white dove on a purple background, were put to immediate use. They waved proudly as the Endeavour, under the command of Captain Henry, whom John had hired to run the ship, sailed out of the harbor and into the blue Pacific.
John was pleased with the way his new ship handled, and when they made a stop in the Bay of Islands, little needed to be done to the ship but to make a few adjustments to the rigging. However, while they were stopped there, the wind dropped, and they were forced to stay at anchor for several days. Samuel Marsden had warned John that it was unsafe to set foot in New Zealand at present because a brutal war was going on between the various Maori tribes. John’s curiosity got the better of him, though, and he went ashore anyway. What he saw there horrified even a seasoned Pacific traveler like him. One Maori chief cheerfully showed him his newest “prize” possession: the severed head of an opposing chief named Henakee. The chief then described how he had come to get the head. In a letter John relayed the story to his sister in England.
It is said that he [Henakee] received four [musket] balls before he fell, and that he had no sooner fallen than Shungee…and another chief, called King George, ran up to him, severed his head from his body, and with revengeful glee, caught and drank his blood! O! How horrible! Lord! What is a man that thou art mindful of him? But not satiated with his death and his blood, these dreadful monsters cut him in pieces, roasted his flesh, and devoured it as a most delicious meal. The large canoes are now returning from the war, some of them with human heads fixed at the head and stern.
Everyone on board the Endeavour was relieved when a wind finally sprang up and filled the sails, allowing the ship to leave New Zealand before too many of the Maori war canoes appeared in the bay.
