2o6 Vofjage of the No vara. 



ill-success of this first venture, Pater Caret made his appear- 

 ance off Tahiti a second time seven weeks later, on board of 

 an American brig, accompanied on this occasion by another 

 priest, Father Maigrat. The captain of the brig, a man 

 named Williams, wrote the Queen a letter requesting permis- 

 sion to land his two passengers. The answer was a firm re- 

 fusal, and so continued, despite the repeated representations 

 of the captain, as also of the above-mentioned M. Moeren- 

 hout. Upon this the captain went to wOrk in true Yankee 

 fashion with the view of landing the two Catholic mission- 

 aries by force on the island, but had to give way before the 

 prudent but decided attitude of resistance adopted hj the 

 natives, who crowded down to the water's edge and pre- 

 vented the boats from landing. This last attempt to carry 

 matters with a high hand having failed, the captain set sail 

 and carried off with him the two missionaries. 



France, though no longer openly claiming the specific cha- 

 racter of a Catholic monarchy as in the days of Louis XIV., 

 but, on the contrary, proclaiming herself, by her laws at 

 least, a free state for all forms of religious worship, apparently 

 thought herself compelled to interfere in this quarrel, with 

 all the weight of a great European power, two of whose 

 subjects had been treated with unmerited indignity. Ac- 

 cordingly in September, 1838, the French frigate Venus, 

 commanded by Commodore Du Petit-Tliouars, appeared off 

 Tahiti to demand satisfaction for the ill-treatment of the 

 French missionaries Laval and Caret, which they assessed at 



