There was no exaggeration in this pathetic statement; it is confirmed by a letter--one of the last he ever wrote--from John Williams, the martyr missionary, who called at Tahiti, March 1839, on his last fatal voyage to the New Hebrides. "You will doubtless see by the papers the cruel and oppressive conduct of the French. A sixty-gun frigate has been sent here to chastise the queen and people of Tahiti for not receiving the Roman Catholic priests; and the captain demanded 2000 dollars (10,000?) to be paid in twenty-four hours, or threatened to carry devastation and death to every island in the queen's dominion. Mr. Pritchard and some merchants here paid the money and saved the lives of the people. The French would only hear one side of the question, but demanded four things within twenty-four hours: 2000 dollars (10,000), a letter of apology to the French king, a salute of twenty-one guns, and the hoisting of the French flag." In short, the island became a French dependency, and the poor queen was left with the mere shadow of her former sovereignty. And so it remains to this day. A strong feeling of indignation was aroused in England. Missionary meetings, particularly a noble one at Leeds, were held, pledging themselves to do all in their power to induce our government to exert its legitimate influence with the government of France to restore to the queen of Tahiti her just independence, and to all classes of her subjects their civil rights and religious freedom. But the English government was either infatuated or afraid. Lord Aberdeen, secretary of state for colonial affairs, stated in the House of Lords that, "although he was not sufficiently informed of the precise grounds upon which the French government had acted, or of the complaints made against the authorities in those islands which had led to the convention; yet he had no apprehension as to the establishment of the French in those seas, nor that our commercial or political interests would be affected by it." He stated that "he had received the most unqualified assurance that every degree of protection and encouragement would be afforded to the British missionaries residing in those islands; that in granting the protectorship to the French king, it had been stipulated that all the places of worship at present existing would receive protection, and that the fullest liberty would be given to the missionaries to exercise their functions." And he concluded by saying, "that he reposed the fullest confidence, not only in the king of the French himself, but in the minister, who at this moment was the principal adviser of that monarch." But a righteous God looked on. This king was driven from his throne, and died an exile in England; while his minister, M. Guizot, who sacrificed his Protestantism to his ambition in this matter, after escaping with difficulty in 1848, from a mob who would have torn him to pieces, saw himself compelled to give up for ever all hope of recovering power in France.