When her French visitors sailed away, Pomare on November 8, 1838, despatched a letter to her sister sovereign, Victoria, to implore “the shelter of her wing, the defence of her lion, and the protection of her flag.” The Tahitians expressed their sense of the favours being forced upon them by the French by passing a law prohibiting “the propagation of any religious doctrines, or the celebration of any religious worship, opposed to that true gospel of old propagated in Tahiti by the missionaries from Britain; that is, these forty years past.”

This breach of international courtesy brought Captain Laplace on the Artémise out to Tahiti “to obtain satisfaction from the Lutheran evangelists who had forced themselves on a simple and docile people.” As the Artémise was off the coast, on April 22, 1839, she struck on a coral reef: an accident that resulted in the officers and crew being lodged on shore for two months. These two months must have given the brethren bitter fruit for reflection upon the ease with which their years of unselfish striving could be obliterated. According to the account of Louis Reybaud of the Artémise: “From the first, the most perfect harmony prevailed between the ship’s company and the natives. Each of the latter chose his tayo,—that is, another self—among the sailors. Between tayos everything is common. At night, the tayos, French and Tahitian, went together to the common hut. Every sailor has thus a house, a wife, a complete domestic establishment. As jealousy is a passion unknown to these islanders, it may be imagined what resources and pleasures such an arrangement afforded our crew. The natives were delighted with the character of our people; they had never met with such gaiety, expansiveness, and kindness in any other foreigners. The beach presented the aspect of a continual holiday, to the great scandal of the missionaries. We have seen how the men managed, and what friends they found. The officers were not less fortunate. The island that Bougainville called the New Cytherea does not belie its name. When the evening set in, every tree along the coast shaded an impassioned pair; and the waters of the river afforded an asylum to a swarm of copper-coloured nymphs, who came to enjoy themselves with the young midshipmen. Wherever you walked you might hear the oui! oui! oui! the word that all the women have learnt with marvellous facility. It would have been far more difficult to teach them to say non!”

Among these relaxations, Captain Laplace found time publicly to declare to the islanders “how shameful and even dangerous it was to violate the faith of treaties, and how unjust and barbarous was intolerance.” Before his sailing, Captain Laplace commanded Pomare to come aboard the Artémise to sign a treaty guaranteeing no discrimination against the French. Pomare’s despondency at the beginning of the proceedings was solaced by champagne and brandy. Casimir Henricy, who accompanied the Artémise throughout her circumnavigatory voyage, says: “When the spirits of the party were sufficiently elevated to find everything good, and while the hands were yet sufficiently steady not to let the pen drop, the treaty was produced as the crowning act of the festivity. M. Laplace thought he had gained a great victory over Polynesian diplomacy; and, certainly, never was a political horizon more bright in flowers and bottles.”

While Tahiti was the theatre of these religious and political cabals, more important and decisive measures occupied the mighty minds of Europe. The captains who had punished and conventionalised Pomare and her people had made their reports in person to their sovereign in Paris, and to the ministers of state, who had indicated their instructions. Honours and titles were awarded to the successful officers, and on their showing it was resolved that the Marquesas should first be taken possession of, and then Tahiti. Rear-Admiral Du Petit-Thouars was commissioned to execute the seizure. On board the Reine Blanche, accompanied by three frigates and three corvettes, he touched Fatu-Heva, the southernmost of the Marquesas, on April 26, 1842, and culminated his triumphant progress through the group in the bay of Tyohee at Nukuheva on May 31.

The Acushnet arrived at Nukuheva at a memorable time. “It was in the summer of 1842 that we arrived at the islands,” says Melville; “the French had then held possession of them for several weeks.”

CHAPTER X
MAN-EATING EPICURES—THE MARQUESAS

“‘Why, they are cannibals!’ said Toby on one occasion when I eulogised the tribe. ‘Granted,’ I replied, ‘but a more humane, gentlemanly and amiable set of epicures do not probably exist in the Pacific.’”

—Herman Melville: Typee.

It was sunset when the Acushnet came within sight of the loom of the mountains of the Marquesas. Innumerable sea-fowls, screaming and whirling in spiral tracts had, for some days previous, been following the vessel as harbingers from land. As the ship drew nearer to green earth, several of man-of-war’s-hawks, with their blood-red bills and raven plumage, had circled round the ship in diminishing circles until Melville was able distinctly to mark the strange flashing of their eyes; and then, as if satisfied by their observations, they would sail up into the air as if to carry sinister warning on ahead. Then,—driftwood on the oily swells; and finally had come the glad announcement from aloft—given with that peculiar prolongation of sound that a sailor loves—“Land ho!”