March 1855: Siaosi (Taufa’ahau) arrived from Tonga with forty ships and 10,000 warriors

Berthold Seeman wrote, ‘In March 1855 Siaosi arrived from Tonga with forty drua (ships) and 10,000 warriors, turning Cakobau’s siege of Kaba, into a victorious charge. After some ambassadors were killed on the shore, the Tongans on their way home, killed 300’. Siaosi (Taufa’ahau) aso known as King George, Tupou II, ruled Tonga from 1852-1893.
Book sparks cotton boom: Seemann’s book gave a favourable account of the possibilities of commercial development in Fiji (or Viti as it was originally named). He has been credited with sparking an influx of Australian settlers there in the 1860s, at a time when British sovereignty of the islands was being debated.
Seemann, Berthold, 1825-1871. Viti : an account of a government mission to the Vitian or Fijian islands in the years 1860-61 / by Berthold Seeman. (Cambridge : Macmillan, 1862)