’Mr. Palmer, Mr. Atkin, and Mr. Brooke went on to Norfolk Island, the whole number of Melanesians on board being sixty-two.  I had spent a very happy month at Mota when the vessel returned from Norfolk Island both with Mr. Codrington and Mr. Bice on board, bringing those of the Melanesians (nearly thirty in all) who chose to stay on Norfolk Island.  Then followed a fortnight’s cruise in the New Hebrides, and now with exactly fifty Melanesians on board from divers islands, we are on our way to Norfolk Island.  We have fourteen girls, two married, on board, and there are ten already at Norfolk Island.  This is an unusual number; but the people understand that the young men and lads who have been with us for some time, who are baptized and accustomed to decent orderly ways, are not going to marry heathen wild girls, so they give up these young ones to be taught and qualify to become fit wives for our rapidly increasing party of young men.

’It is quite clear that we must aim at exhibiting, by God’s blessing, Christian family life in the islands, and this can only be done by training up young men and women.

’Three married couples, all Communicants, live now at Kohimarama, the station at Mota.  George has two children, Benjamin one.  It is already a small specimen of a little Christian community, and it must be reinforced, year by year, by accessions of new couples of Christian men and women.

’About twenty lads live at the station, and about forty more come daily to school.  It may grow soon into a real working school, from which the most intelligent and best conducted boys may be taken to Norfolk Island for a more complete education.  I am hopeful about a real improvement in Mota and elsewhere.

’But a new difficulty has lately been caused by the traders from Sydney and elsewhere, who have taken many people to work in the plantations at Brisbane, Mimea, (New Caledonia), and the Fiji Islands, actual kidnapping, and this is a sad hindrance to us.  I know of no case of actual violence in the Banks Islands; but in every case, they took people away under false pretences, asserting that “the Bishop is ill and can’t come; he has sent us to bring you to him.”  “The Bishop is in Sydney, he broke his leg getting into his boat, and has sent us to take you to him,” &c., &c.  In many of these places some of our old scholars are found who speak a little English, and the traders communicated with them.

’In most places where any of our young people happened to be on shore, they warned their companions against these men, but not always with success.  Hindrances there must be always in the way of all attempts to do some good.  But this is a sad business, and very discreditable to the persons employed in it and the Government which sanctions it, for they must know that they cannot control the masters of the vessels engaged in the trade; they may pass laws as to the treatment the natives are to receive on