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,