Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic

by Raymond M. Weaver

Tortured, shall prove the torturer.”

The brethren in Tahiti were without any of Melville’s misgivings. Their faith was extraordinary. No less extraordinary was the native imperviousness to salvation. After the brethren had ceased to be an amusing novelty with gifts to bestow, the natives submitted them to neglect and mockery. Revolts against King Pomare and constant war kept the brethren in peril of their lives without releasing them to celestial jubilation. The Napoleonic wars cut them off from communication with England. During the first twelve years they heard from home only three times. These days of fruitless trial sifted the party. Many of the brethren seized any opportunity that offered to sail away on chance trading vessels. Of the seven who remained, two died. In 1801 eight new brethren came out to reinforce the number, then reduced to four. In 1804 old King Pomare died, and his son Oto became King under the title Pomare II. In the wars that followed, the mission seemed broken up: their house was burned, the printing press destroyed, and six of the brethren removed from Tahiti to Huahine. Two remained, however, to carry on the forlorn hope. But after all these years Pomare’s heart began to soften. His gods seemed to be standing him in little stead. Defeated in battle, he escaped to Eimeo, and invited the missionaries to follow him. Here he ate a sacred turtle, and when no harm came to him he dared still further. Meanwhile it was proposed in England that proselyting in Polynesia be discontinued, since after sixteen years not one conversion had been effected. But those of undaunted faith protested. The ship bearing fresh supplies and news of the revived determination of those at home to prosecute the work was met in mid-ocean with the cargo of the rejected idols of the Tahitians. In a church seven hundred and twelve feet long, with twenty-nine doors and three pulpits, all paid for by himself,—the church in which Melville witnessed Sunday devotion—King Pomare had himself moistened on the forehead with the water of life.

Backed by their royal patron, the Missionaries undertook to convert Tahiti into a Polynesian Chautauqua. As Mrs. Helen Barrett Montgomery says, in her Christus Redemptor: “We cannot follow the glowing story of how the King had a code of laws made and read it to seven thousand of his people, who, by solemn vote, made these the law of the land.” In 1839, Captain Hervey, in command of a whale-ship, reported of Tahiti: “It is the most civilised place I have been at in the South Seas. They have a good code of laws and no liquors are allowed to be landed on the island. It is one of the most gratifying sights the eye can witness to see, on Sunday, in their church, which holds about four thousand, the Queen near the pulpit with all her subjects about her, decently apparelled and seemingly in pure devotion.” Three years later, Melville attended one of these services, and was less favourably impressed.

In 1823, the French establishment of the Œuvre de la propagation de la Foi formed at Lyons, and soon cast a beneficent eye upon North and South America and the islands of Oceania. In 1814, soon after the restoration of the Bourbons, the Abbé Coudrin had founded the Society of Picpus “to promote the revival of the Roman Catholic religion in France, and to propagate it by missions among unbelievers or pagans.” This establishment received Papal sanction in 1817, and was placed under “the special protection of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.” In 1833, the Congregation of the Propaganda, with the confirmation of the Sovereign Pontiff, confided to the Society of Picpus the conversion of all the islands of the Pacific ocean. Two apostolic prefectures were established. M. E. Rouchouse was made bishop of Nilolopis, in partibus, and apostolic vicar of Eastern Oceania; M. C. Liansu was appointed as his prefect; two priests, Caret and Laval, and a catechist, Columban, or Murphy, were placed under his direction. In May, 1834, the Catholic missionaries arrived at Valparaiso, bound for the South Seas.

The benefits of the True Faith were not to advance into the Pacific unassisted by the secular arm. Two officers of the French Navy, Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz, in their Considerations générales sur la Colonisation Française dans l’Oceanie thus speak for the less purely religious interests of France: “It is impossible for a traveller who may visit the islands of the Pacific, not to speculate on the destiny of the happy groups scattered over its bosom. The first thing that strikes him is the sight of men, consecrated to a religious work, meddling with the temporal affairs of these free people, whom they have brought under their domination, under pretence of directing their consciences.... When the rapid multiplication of the population of all European countries is considered, it is evident that before long a European colony will be formed in each of the innumerable islands of the Pacific, and missionary efforts merit therefore all the attention of the government.... On the signal from the first cannon that shall be fired in Europe, a protecting flag will be seen to rise on each of these islands now so peaceful. God grant that the tri-coloured flag of our nation may show itself with honour!”

At this time, it was a law of Tahiti that before a foreigner could have leave to reside on the island, permission must be granted by Queen Pomare and the chiefs. The Catholic missionaries, aware of this regulation, succeeded, however, in effecting a landing disguised as carpenters, and to this island, partly idolatrous, partly heretic, they gave the salutation of peace. Pomare, however, was unappreciative of their salute, and refused to the disguised priests permission to remain. This exclusion, in its sequel, raised the most delicate questions of international diplomacy, and bestirred Pomare to scatter anxious letters broadcast over the face of the earth. Her correspondence included a cosmopolitan company of Commodores and Admirals, Queen Victoria, the President of the United States, and Louis Philippe of France. Admiral Du Petit-Thouars, in command of the Venus, was despatched to Tahiti under special orders, “to make the Queen and the inhabitants feel that France is a great and powerful nation.” The Venus arrived at Tahiti, August 27, 1838, and proceeded to summary justice. Under the pressure of a broadside, Pomare was obliged to beg pardon of the most Christian King. “I am only,” she wrote to Louis Philippe, “the sovereign of a little insignificant island; may glory and power be with your majesty; let your anger cease; and pardon me the mistake that I have made.”

It was further demanded of Pomare that she pay “a great and powerful nation” the sum of two thousand dollars as a more solid reparation for her bad behaviour. Pomare was appalled at the magnitude of this sum: there was no such amplitude of wealth in her treasury. The missionaries were moved in compassion to finance her political indiscretion. But in the next humiliation dealt out to her, the brethren were unable to offer much assistance. The French Admiral bore instructions to require that the French flag be hoisted the day following the receipt of the two thousand dollars, and that it be honoured by Pomare with a salute of twenty-one guns. The situation was awkward. Pomare was very short of powder. She assured the Admiral she had not enough for more than five shots. The Admiral paced the deck, and passed his fingers through his hair in considerable agitation. “What will they say in France,” said the patriotic commander, “when they know that I furnished the powder to salute my own flag?” The difficulty was great. An expedient was necessary, and the Admiral hit upon one: “Mr. Consul,” said he to the Rev. Pritchard, and British Consul, “I can give you some powder, and you can do with it as you please.” According to the French report, Pritchard “himself loaded the bad cannon on the little island and directed the firing;” and soon after, the French observed Pritchard to look “thin and bilious, with an appearance of pride, and the cold dignity so natural to the English.”

But the visiting Admiral had not yet completed his duty to “the justly irritated King of the French.” He condescended to visit the Queen on purpose to introduce Moerenhaut as French consul. Moerenhaut had been American consul at Tahiti, but had been relieved of the responsibilities of that office at a request of Pomare to the President of the United States. Moerenhaut’s life, in all of its varied and unsavoury details, has yet to be written: it would make an entertaining supplement to the Police Gazette. Moerenhaut himself adventured in letters, and in his Voyages aux îles du Grand Ocean he exposes many of the corrupt practices that he himself was instrumental in bringing about. The Admiral and Moerenhaut, in the name of Louis Philippe, drew up a convention with Pomare “to establish the right of French subjects to stay in the territory of the Tahitian sovereign.”

During these proceedings, Captain Dumont D’Urville, cruising the Pacific, arrived at the Marquesas with two corvettes, the Astrolabe and the Zélé, hot from the Gambier islands, the seat of Bishop Rouchouse. At Gambier, when “all were gay and cheerful,” D’Urville had been enlightened as to the true character of the heretical missionaries: “oppressors of the poor Tahitians; in short, vampires, whose cruelties and inquisitorial tortures were as atrocious as their hypocrisy was disgusting.” Before he left the jovial board, his indignation was so high that “he felt the honour of his flag” required that he sail to Tahiti and dispense “exemplary chastisement.” Upon his arrival at the Marquesas he was surprised to find Du Petit-Thouars, who had been there, already departed. There was value to his visit, however, in giving to the pious efforts of Bishop Rouchouse the support of a few broadsides. But there were other scenes at the Marquesas of which Bishop Rouchouse, in good conscience, could not have approved. Melville asserts that while the Acushnet was at the Marquesas, “our ship was wholly given up to every species of riot and debauchery.” In the official account of the voyages of Captain Dumont D’Urville is a more detailed account of a similar surrender. Melville says of the dances of the women of the Marquesas: “There is an abandoned voluptuousness in their character that I dare not attempt to describe.” The French, in their official reports, exhibit a greater courage.

Captain Dumont D’Urville arrived in Tahiti nine days after the submission of Pomare, and the day following his arrival he accompanied Admiral Du Petit-Thouars on a visit to the Queen. He had not yet cooled in his patriotic indignation, so he addressed Pomare severely, and with gratifying results: “I perceived that Pomare was deeply affected, and that tears began to fall from her eyes, as she threw them on me with an evident expression of anger. At the same moment I also perceived that Captain Du Petit-Thouars endeavoured to diminish the effect of my words by some little liberties that he was taking with the Queen; such as pulling gently her hair, and patting her cheeks; he even added that she was foolish to be so much affected.”