State and Prospects of the Protestant Mission at Tahiti under the French Protectorate.
At the period of Mr. Marsden’s decease, the Tahitian mission, over which he had watched with parental solicitude from its infancy, presented an aspect even more cheering than that of New Zealand. Idolatry had fallen; its idols were utterly abolished; they had found their way to the most ignoble uses, or to the museums of the curious, or those of the various missionary societies in Great Britain. So complete was their destruction that natives of Tahiti have actually visited the museum of the London Missionary Society within the last few years, and there seen, for the first time in their lives, a Tahitian idol. But a dark cloud already skirted the horizon, and the infant church was soon to pass through the purifying furnace of a long, relentless, wearying, and even bitter persecution.
The revolution of 1830 had placed Louis Philippe on the throne of France. During the earlier years of his reign, the church of Rome was deprived of much of that power and dignity which it had enjoyed under the elder Bourbons. As to any hold on the affections of the people of France, this it seldom boasted,—certainly not within the last hundred years. Yet the crafty king of the French was not unwilling to give to his restless priesthood the opportunities both of employment and renown in foreign parts; especially if in doing so he could extend his own power, and add a wreath to that national glory so dear to Frenchmen. The priests were therefore instructed to direct their attention to the South Sea Islands. Animated partly by hatred to England, they succeeded in effecting a settlement in the Society Islands. The first of them, who arrived there, called Columban (though his original name was Murphy), came in rather strange guise. “He was clad like a man before the mast, smoked a short pipe, and at first was mistaken for what he appeared to be. He had an old English passport, and among other pious tricks, endeavoured to make use of the lion and the unicorn, to prove to the natives that he was sent by the king of Great Britain.”[L] Two others, Caret and Laval, arrived soon afterwards. The law of the island forbade foreigners to reside without obtaining the sanction of the queen. The priests, accordingly, when their arrival became known, were ordered to depart. They refused; comparing the Protestant missionaries to Simon Magus, and claiming for themselves the exclusive right to instruct the Tahitian people. After some delay, however, they left, and went to the Grambier Islands. Captain Lord E. Russell, then with his ship of war at the island, publicly declared, that “if the priests had remained in the country, anarchy and confusion, disastrous to the island, would have inevitably ensued.” This was in December, 1836.
In September, 1837, M. Montpellier, accompanied by Murphy-Columban, arrived at Tahiti. He was followed in 1838 by Captain Du Petit Thouars in the frigate Venus, who made no secret in avowing to our English officers that he was looking out for a suitable island on which to hoist the French flag for the purpose, he added, of forming a penal settlement. Returning to Paris, Thouars was raised to the rank of rear-admiral, and sent back to the Pacific with his flag in La Reine Blanche on a secret expedition. He seized on two of the Marquesas Islands, built a fort on each, and garrisoned them with four hundred men. He now wrote home, demanding thrice that number of troops and four ships of war for the maintenance of his conquest; but he had further objects in view. False representations had probably been made to the French government with regard to the removal of Caret and Laval; and Captain Du Petit Thouars was instructed to demand satisfaction at Tahiti for injuries done to French subjects. A desire of conquest no doubt inflamed Guizot the French minister—alas! that a Protestant should thus have tarnished his fame—as well as his royal master; but hatred of Protestantism had its full share in these nefarious proceedings.
One M. Henicy, who accompanied the Antoine French frigate to Tahiti, in the summer of 1839, thus writes of the English missionaries: “Ferocious oppressors, shameless monopolizers, trafficking in the word of God, they have procured for themselves a concert of curses. Their ministers are found to be vile impostors.” Caret, Murphy, and the other priests now returned to Tahiti. A French consul was appointed, a worthless, profligate man; he professed, however, to be a zealous friend of the true faith, anxious for missionary labourers to convert the deluded Tahitian Protestants. Very little progress, however, could be made in this spiritual work; the natives obstinately preferred sermons to masses, and possessed so little taste as to reject pictures and rosaries while they still read their Bibles. It was evident that efforts of a more strenuous kind, though, such as the church of Rome is never unwilling to resort to when persuasion fails, must be tried. And now it was announced that the island was placed under the protection of France; to this arrangement, it was pretended, the chiefs of Tahiti and the queen herself had consented; nay, that they had solicited the protection of France. This unblushing falsehood was immediately exposed, and we now know, from queen Pomare herself, that all the proceedings in this disgraceful affair had their origin in fraud and treachery. They were chiefly carried out by the French consul, who is accused of having, under false pretences, prevailed on certain chiefs of the island to affix their signatures, in the name of the queen, to a document, the object of which was to induce the king of the French to take Tahiti under his protection, the pretence being grounded on a false statement, which accused some native chiefs, and the representatives of other nations, of bad conduct and various crimes. When the queen was apprised of this document, she called a council of her chiefs, with an assembled multitude of natives and foreigners; and, in the presence of the British, French, and American consuls, denied all knowledge of it, as also did the chiefs themselves who signed it. They declared that the French consul brought it to them in the night, and that they put their names to it without knowing what it contained. The governor, being one of the persons imposed upon, wrote to the British consul, Mr. Cunningham, declaring that the parties subscribing did not know what were the contents of the letter which the French consul brought them to sign, and that they affixed their names to it, as it were, in the dark. The translator also affirmed that it must have been written by some person not a Tahitian; its idiom being foreign, its orthography bad, words misapplied, and the handwriting even foreign.
But the most convincing evidence of the forgery was the declaration of two of the chiefs who signed the document, Tati and Ulami, to the following effect: “That all men may know, We, who have signed our names hereunto, clearly and solemnly make known and declare, as upon oath, that the French consul did wholly dictate and write the letter, said to be written by the queen Pomare and her governors, requesting protection of the king of the French. Through fear we signed it. It was in his own house, and in the night time, that the document was signed by us. And we signed it also because he said, If you will sign your names to this, I will give you one thousand dollars each when the French admiral’s ship returns to Tahiti.
(Signed) “Tati,
“Ulami.”
This disgraceful plot was carried on in the absence of the queen. She was no sooner made acquainted with it, than she addressed a short and dignified protest and remonstrance to the queen of Great Britain, the president of the United States, and the king of the French. Few diplomatic notes are more worthy of a place in history than that which was addressed to Louis Philippe.
“Peace be to you. I make a communication to you, and this is its nature,—
“During my absence from my own country a few of my people, entirely without my knowledge or authority, wrote a letter to you, soliciting your assistance. I disavow any knowledge of that document. Health to you.
(Signed) “Pomare.”
But the French consul proceeded to form a provisional government of three persons, placing himself at the head of it as consul-commissary of the king. The triumvirate behaved with the greatest insolence, not only to the poor queen, but even to the British flag. Captain Sir T. Thompson, with the Talbot, lay in the harbour. The queen arrived and hoisted the Tahitian flag, which the Talbot saluted. A letter from the consul-commissary and the two French officials with whom he was associated was addressed as a protest to the gallant captain, “holding him responsible to the king of the French, his government and nation, for the consequences of such disrespect, and for a measure so hostile towards France.” Sir Thomas knew his duty too well to answer the affront, or in any way to notice it; but he could only look on with silent sorrow and disgust, he had no power to interfere. The queen also received an insolent letter from the consul; he even forced himself into her presence, and behaved in a rude and disrespectful manner. “He said to me,” she writes, in a letter to the captain of the Talbot, “shaking his head at me, throwing about his arms, and staring fiercely at me, ‘Order your men to hoist the new flags, and that the new government be respected.’ I protested against this conduct, and told him I had nothing more to say to him.” Bereft of other hope, the insulted and greatly injured Pomare wrote a most touching and pathetic letter to queen Victoria. It was published in the newspapers, and went to the heart of every man and woman in Britain who had a heart to feel for dignity and virtue in distress, “Have compassion on me in my present trouble, in my affliction and great helplessness. Do not cast me away; assist me quickly, my friend. I run to you for refuge, to be covered, under your great shadow, the same as afforded to my fathers by your fathers, who are now dead, and whose kingdoms have descended to us.” She explains how her signature was obtained. “Taraipa (governor of Tahiti) said to me, ‘Pomare, write your name under this document (the French deed of protection); if you don’t sign your name you must pay a fine of 10,000 dollars, 5000 to-morrow and 5000 the following day; and should the first payment be delayed beyond two o’clock the first day, hostilities will be commenced, and your country taken from you. On account of this threat,” says the queen, “against my will I signed my name. I was compelled to sign it, and because I was afraid; for the British and American subjects residing in my country in case of hostilities would have been indiscriminately massacred. No regard would have been paid to parties.”