A HISTORY OF TAHITI 465 



mission to land met with a prompt refusal, and with their disappear- 

 ance the curtain falls upon the first scene of the drama. 



The second opens when on August 29, 1838, the French frigate 

 Venus, under 'Commodore DuPetit-Thouars, bore down upon Papeete, 

 and, training her guns upon the town, demanded first an apology, second 

 2,000 Spanish dollars, and third a salute of twenty-one guns for the 

 French flag. 



The native sources of money-revenue were derived largely from 

 washing done for ships, of which employment Her Majesty and the high 

 chiefs enjoyed a monopoly, and the hopelessness of attempting to pay 

 this enormous indemnity was so overpowering that in her despair the 

 Queen is said to have advised the ceding of the entire Island to the 

 French. 



Even had the town been shelled, retreat to the hillsides would have 

 given the natives hardly more concern than in the days of Wallis, but it 

 was far otherwise with the English residents, who, moreover, were al- 

 ready scheming for a British protectorate. Thus the foreign resi- 

 dents came to the aid of the Queen and the indemnity was promptly 

 paid, the French, however, being obliged to provide the powder used to 

 salute their own flag, for, as Mr. Pritchard states in his "Polynesian 

 Eeminiscences," upon the entire Island there was not sufiBcient powder 

 for more than five of the twenty-one shots required.' 



The French Commodore then demanded a treaty by virtue of which 

 Frenchmen of all professions were to be permitted to establish them- 

 selves upon Tahiti; and after obliging the Queen to accept a French 

 Consul of his own choosing, the Venus sailed away. 



Most unwisely, immediately after the departure of the Venus, the 

 Queen, instigated by Pritchard and the missionaries, issued a law for- 

 bidding the teaching of Roman Catholic doctrines in Tahiti ; when, like 

 a bird of ill omen, another frigate L'Artemise rose above the horizon, but 

 in approaching the island she struck so heavily upon the coral reef 

 that had it not been for native aid in towing her into Papeete Harbor 

 she would have sunk. No sooner were her injuries repaired, however, 

 than her captain, running out his guns, demanded equal rights for both 

 Catholics and Protestants, and the cession of a site for a Roman Catho- 

 lic church. Soon after this in 1841 the chiefs of the old conservative 

 party applied to France for protection ; the Queen, instigated by Pritch- 

 ard, having already addressed a similar appeal to England.^ 



A semblance of peace then fell upon the scene and for several years 



8 This event is depicted in Plate No. 53 accompanying the ' ' Voyage autour 

 du monde" by A. DuPetit-Thouars, Paris, 1841. 



9 Great Britain responded by a pleasing but non-commital letter, and a gift to 

 the queen of some household furniture, which through an irony of fate arrived 

 just in time to be of service to Bruat, the first French Governor. 



VOL. LXXXVI. — 33. 



