The Wakefields were a family of adventurers with a vision of empire which was to color the thinking of the Victorian age. This study describes in detail their attempt to impose an early Victorian pattern on one corner of Polynesia and the tensions that resulted therefrom. It shows the early Victorian mind adapting itself to the shocks of a new and varied environment and the response of the Polynesians to the challenge of an unexpected invasion, including that of European diseases which threatened to destroy them.