I have here for sale a rare book entitled AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF FOUR YEARS RESIDENCE AT TONGATABOO, one of the Friendly Islands in the South-Sea.  A first edition published by Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme in 1810.  There is a b/w chart of the Island and Harbour of Tongataboo.  The author was aboard the ship Duff under Captain Wilson in 1796.  

This is an authentic account of the life of the missionary George Vason who was one of the first ten Christian missionaries to arrive in Tonga. He left the missionaries at Tonga and lived among the natives for four years. He began to dress and live as a Tongan, and married one of the native girls. He built up an estate and became a prosperous Tongan gentlemen until the beginning of the civil wars in 1799. He was tattooed, and looked and spoke like a Tongan. He escaped the wars on the ship, Royal Admiral, and returned to Nottingham where he died in 1838. He told his story to James Orange and only two versions have been printed, this one in 1810 and one in 1840. His description of Tonga at the end of the eighteenth century is important in that it precedes William Mariner's longer account published in 1817, but the two accounts give uniquely objective reports of Tonga before and during the civil war. 

Bound in dark brown marbled hardboards with a brown cloth spine.  Corners are worn and part of the marbled paper is missing from the bottom right corner.  Inscriptions to the front endpaper.  Pages have a few spots and marks.  234 pages.  22 x 14 cm.