Chapter XVIII
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one day, an old native preacher came along, and secretly gave me a letter which I at once saw was from Queen Pomare. In this letter she wrote to say that she was very sorry for not having accepted my offer to bring her back to Tahiti, and that the news she had received from her island was troubling her a great deal, as it stated that her lands and her people were all killed or wounded, and that she had been informed that the chiefs had come in and submitted themselves to the French. This decided me at once to try again and ask the governor to allow me once more to go back to the island and get her and bring her back to us. This wish seemed to aggravate the governor towards me. He said: "Have you not done enough for the Pomares, that you should still continue to go down to fetch them?" He showed me a document which he was preparing, and which he intended to have published, by which he intended to take hold of the island and break up the act of protectorate that had been already made, and on account of my refusal to become the queen, instead of Pomare, to make the island a French colony at once. I, however, begged him to allow me to go down and bring Pomare back. He reluctantly agreed, and said to me: "You can go down, and if by chance that queen should hear you, you can bring her to Moorea, and leave her there, and let me know". We then started, on that very day. We called at Huahine, and the next morning we anchored in Raiatea. We found the queen fully prepared this time to come aboard with no more trouble, and we left there that evening. The next day we anchored in Moorea, where we went ashore. The steamer then proceeded to Papeete. The next day [6 Feb. 1847] it reappeared with the governor on board, and he came in person to receive the queen and bring her back home. As we all went on board a salute was fired. We went around the island flying the protectorate flag at the fore, to inform the people of these islands that their queen had returned. We then continued our route for Papeete, and on arriving there the forts from the shore saluted the flag. The queen remained several hours on board the steamer, as the governor wished the natives to see that the queen had really come back.
There were then in port several ships of war, French, British and
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© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 195, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-195.html