FRENCH AGGRESSIONS IN TAHITI.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 38, 9 December 1842, Page 3

FRENCH AGGRESSIONS IN TAHITI.

From accounts received in Sydney from Tahiti, it appears that the French squadron, under Admiral du Petit Thoire, have again commenced their outrages on the peaceful islanders of Tahiti. The French frigate La Reine Blanche, one of the squadron by which possession was lately taken of the Marquesas, arrived at Papiete, the principal town of the island, on the lOtli September, hearing the flag of the Admiral, who shortly after demanded of Queen Pomare that she should sign a document, placing her government under the protection of France; and that a deposit of 25,000 dollars should be paid, as a guarantee for the due observance of future good faith, intimating that in the event of non-compliance, lie would fire on the town. The document was signed by a number of the chiefs, under the influence of fear, before the Queen had seen it. Pomare at the time was at the neighbouring island of Eimeo, where she received a verbal message from the French Consul, requiring her attendance on the Admiral, but conceiving it infra dig, she did not comply, alleging her approaching accouchement as the cause. The document signed by the chiefs was then despatched to her with the intimation that if not returned by 2, p. m., the day following, with her signature attached, the frigate would open her fire on the town. With the insolent demands of the gallant Admiral, Pomare had no resource hut to comply. On receiving the document thus signed, Du Petit Thoire issued a proclamation addressed to the Queen, and the principal chiefs, accepting in the name of France and of the French King, of the proposal thus extorted to place the island under the protection of the French Government’,' and announcing the conditions of the treaty. — Colonial Observer.

The Crops. —We are sorry to learn, from a gentleman just arrived from the Hunter, who has recently made an overland journey to Wellington Valley, that the crops throughout the whole district of Wellington have entirely failed, as also in the Upper Hunter district from Patrick’s Plains upwards. The failure of Wellington is ascribed partly to the grasshoppers, and partly to the want of rain.