The admiral's report of his proceedings at Tahiti afforded little satisfaction either to the King or to M. Guizot.[761] But to have disavowed him would have exposed them to the charge of truckling to England--an accusation which would probably have proved fatal to the existence of the government. The establishment of a French protectorate over the islands was, accordingly, published in the _Moniteur_ of March 20, 1843. The announcement was much resented in England. It was not possible, however, for England to object to France assuming a responsibility which she herself had twice declined to undertake. Lord Aberdeen's communications with M. Guizot on the subject were, consequently, confined to the expression of a hope that the British missionaries would not be interfered with, and that the sovereign rights of Queen Pomare would be respected. With both these requests the French government readily promised to comply.[762] But, in the meantime, affairs at Tahiti had not been progressing smoothly. When the Queen was induced to invoke the protection of France, Mr. Pritchard, the British consul, was absent from the island on a visit to Australia. Pritchard had, for a long time past, been engaged in missionary work and in trading in the South Seas. According to his own statement, however, upon his appointment to the post of consul at Tahiti, he had severed his connection with the Methodist missionary society of which he had been a member.[763] Meerenhout, the French consul, on the other hand, was an ardent Roman Catholic, but, like his British colleague, he too combined the business of trading with his official duties.[764] Racial prejudice, sectarian zeal and trade rivalry account sufficiently for the bitter enmity which existed between the two men. The news of Admiral Dupetit-Thouars' proceedings reached Pritchard at Sidney, and his own correspondence shows that he started upon his return journey with the intention of doing everything in his power to induce the British government "to interfere" and with the expectation of finding "many difficulties to encounter."[765] His first act upon his arrival at Tahiti was to instigate Queen Pomare, over whom he appears to have had great influence, to write to Her Britannic Majesty. In this curious document Queen Pomare, after inviting her "sister friend" to commiserate with her in the difficulties in which she was involved with the French, begged her "to send a large ship of war" to her assistance. The circumstances under which the demand for French protection had been extorted from her were narrated, much space being devoted to the part played in the transaction by M. Meerenhout, "a very bad and troublesome man."[766]