Mariner, William, 1791-1853.

An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands, in the South Pacific Ocean : with an original grammar and vocabulary of their language / compiled and arranged from the extensive communications of Mr. William Mariner, several years resident in those islands by John Martin. 3rd edition, considerably enlarged. (Edinburgh : Constable, 1827) 2v.

William Mariner was a cabin boy on the Port au Prince a privateer which cruised the south seas attacking Spanish ships. In 1806 the ship put in to Hawaii and left with a mostly Hawaiian crew. On 1^st December 1806 they landed at the Hapai Islands, Tonga, where the crew was massacred and the ship burnt. Mariner was the only survivor. He was adopted by the Chief and one of the Chief’s wives, given the name of the Chief’s dead son, and brought up in a Tongan family, learning the language and the local customs. Using some of the guns from the Port au Prince, he took part in the tribal wars. He was allowed to leave on a passing English boat in 1810, arriving back in England in 1811.

He gave an account of his experiences to John Martin, who edited them for a book, published in 1817, later reprinted as vols. 13 and 14 of Constable’s Miscellany (1827)

The frontispiece to the first edition shows Mariner in Tongan dress; this is reproduced as the title-page vignette in the Constable edition, with a folded frontispiece map of the Tongan group. An anchor next to Lefoogia, in the Hapai Islands shows where ”the Port au Prince was cut off.”

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