parents had a powerful influence over their children, he resolved to
make them his first care. His labours succeeded; the Otaheitans were
naturally of a tractable disposition, and gave him less trouble than he
anticipated. The children also acquired such a thirst after scriptural
knowledge, that Adams in a short time had little else to do than to
answer their interrogatories, and put them in the right way. As they
grew up, they acquired fixed habits of morality and piety; their colony
improved, and intermarriages occurred; and they now form a happy and
well-regulated society, the merit of which, in a great degree, belongs
to Adams, and tends to redeem the errors of his former life.

The affection of these simple islanders for the venerable father of the
colony is the best proof of the success which has attended his
instructions; and it is really astonishing to observe how much has been
accomplished by an illiterate seaman--strongly excited, indeed, and
prompted to persevere in his course by motives which never err. When it
was seen by these poor people that Adams did not immediately return from
the Blossom (off the island), they took alarm, lest he should be
detained; and one of their party, a recent settler, and a sea-faring
man, having discovered the ship to be a vessel of war, their fears
redoubled. When, at last, the old man landed, his daughter, Hannah,
hurried to the beach to kiss her father's cheek, with a fervency
demonstrative of the warmest affection.

It seems to have been a part of Adams's policy to make religious
ceremonies an important part of their daily business, not merely an
occasional duty. In describing a dinner scene, after stating that the
knives and forks, though more abundant than he had expected to find in
so remote a part of the world, were scarcely enough according to
civilized notions, he goes on thus--