in 1851, and maintained a zealous correspondence with some of the most intimate hangers-on upon Louis Napoleon, till the coup d'état revealed the French ruler's projects, and Longomasino joined the camp of the opponents of the new empire. His contumacious agitation against the new order of things led to his imprisonment and ultimate banishment. He was first transported to Nukahiwa, one of the Marquesas Islands, and afterwards received permission to settle at Papeete in Tahiti. Starting as a farrier, then an advocate, and finally a tavern-keeper, he was unable in any of these capacities to earn a subsistence for himself and his numerous family; the less so, that political intrigues deprived him of the right to practise at the bar, and this compelled him to have recourse to a business for which he had neither taste nor turn. If we understood matters aright, Longomasino, in the course of his juridical labours, had been able to do many a good turn to the Catholic bishop of Tahiti in his dispute with the French administration, and it was therefore less sympathy with the unfortunate political convict than the desire to play an adversary a trick by depriving him of an able adherent, which induced the Governor to ask our Commodore permission to give a free passage to Longomasino, who had been condemned to transportation for life. The request was willingly granted, and on the eve of our sailing Longomasino came on board the frigate, while his wife and family were to follow by a merchant-ship. The unhappy man, who had not words enough wherewith to express his gratitude for the friendly reception he experienced,
still further gained the sympathies of all on board, with his melancholy fate, by his manly reticence on the subject of the injustice he had sustained.[97]
Another convict, who had excited universal attention at Papeete, was M. Belmare, a well-educated young man, who in 1850 avowed he had shot at Louis Napoleon while at the Tuileries, and, in consequence, been transported to Tahiti. The fact that Belmare has since then been taken into the employ of the treasury at Papeete, where he receives a salary of £100 per annum, gave colour to the most whimsical reports as to the clemency displayed by the French Government in this case; yet we repeatedly heard the opinion expressed that Belmare was solely put forward as a tool for carrying out—which was to be used as a blind by giving the Government of Louis Napoleon opportunity for new stretches of arbitrary power. Whether, however, a residence at Tahiti, even with a handsome salary, be sufficient recompence for such services, M. Belmare alone is in a position to say.
A succession of bad weather, such as so frequently occurs in the tropics, delayed our departure for several days. Now it was a heavy gale, commencing in the north and gradually veering round to W. and S.W.; now it was a series of calms, while the surf swept in unbroken masses on the beach, and so heavily, that it seemed the height of imprudence to take the
frigate out through the narrow channel which constitutes the mouth of the harbour of Papeete, and is nothing but a cleft in the coral walls which surround Tahiti, and protect it from the ocean swell.
At length, on 28th February, at day-break, we got under weigh. One of our own boats, as also a boat from the French steamer Milan, which was courteously placed at our disposal, towed the Novara outside the reef, and materially aided the efforts of our men, a barely perceptible catspaw of wind just filling the sails. Piloted by a native lootse, we steered out so close to the projecting coral reefs, that the frigate all but touched them.
We now had a parting view of Tahiti and the little island of Motu-Uta, where stood our improvised observatory, and where so many sleepless nights had been passed in observations for the purpose of defining astronomically the exact position of the island.
We found the breeze freshened once we were outside the reef, and steered northwards, beautiful Tahiti, with the imposing and irregular outline of its hills, and the richness and variety of its vegetation, recalling, in some aspects, the glowing loveliness of the tropics, in others, the still sublimity of some of our Alpine landscapes, till it lay behind us like a shadowy vision of dream-land.
Almost simultaneously with the departure of the Novara, the American whaler Emily Morgan, Captain Chase, stood out from the harbour of Papeete. This vessel had been whaling in
the southern seas during five years, without any adequate return for her perseverant exertions. Her entire take was as yet only four barrels of train oil!! She was now making for the Sandwich Islands, and thence home to Boston. Latterly, the North American whalers have formed themselves into partnership, so as to divide profit and loss. If his companions had encountered no better fortune than Captain Chase, they might safely aver they had worked five years for nothing. The crew of the Emily Morgan, who were as usual almost entirely dependent for their remuneration on their tenth share of the oil, had begun to despair, and six of their number deserted from the ship, to stay behind at Tahiti. Throughout the voyage, Captain Chase had had his wife with him, a spirited energetic American woman, who on occasions could take her trick at the helm, or even direct the ship's manœuvres. So completely had she fallen into the ways on board ship, that even in ordinary conversation she frequently let slip a few sea-phrases, and recounted, with much pride, how, when the boats had been away in pursuit, she had kept her watch like a regular officer.