In the Times this morning appears a letter signed "
Walter Brodie," in which the writer shows that the dispute between England and France about Tahiti is not so completely onesided as many imagine : he testi- fies to a well-known fact, adds another strange trait of Tahitian diplo- macy, and makes a terrible charge against Queen Pomare-
" Mr. Pritchard was the first cause, and I may say the sole cause, of all these late disturbances regarding Tahiti. Had Mr. Pritchard only attended to his Consular duty, in place of persuading Queen Pomard, some few years ago, to expel some French Roman Catholic priests off the island of Tahiti to the Islands of Gambier, (which priests had a right by the laws of Tahiti to live on the island,) Tahiti now would have been in peace, as it formerly was. Does Mr. Pritchard, who is now in England, recollect the brutal manner in which the aforesaid priests were turned off Tahiti, and sent in a small schooner to the Gambier Islands, by order of the Queen, at the recommendation of Mr.
Pritchard? •
" It appears very strange to me that Sir Robert Peel demands, as he calls it, ample reparation to be made to this country for imprisoning an Ex-Consul, who had been the sole mover and daily instigator of the said disturbances. I consider that the French were as much justified in confining Mr. Pritchard for his acts as the Tahitian Government were in placing Mr. C. 13. Wilson, Mr. l'ritchard's representative, or Vice•Consul, when Mr. Pritchard was in this country in the beginning of 1842, in the Calaboose (prison), with both his legs in the stocks, for drunkenness. A pretty Vice-Consul ! Has Sir Robert Peel ever heard of this ? No; neither does he hear of one-twentieth part -which he ought to know. The above is not a mere report. I was a witness to the transaction, and can vouch for the fact." " The good people of Leeds, by an advertisement in the Times of Friday i last, appear to sympathize much in favour of Queen Pomare : do they know that Queen Pomarfi was formerly married to the King of Bola Bola, (one of the Society Islands,) and, on account of her bad conduct, he was compelled to get a divorce; and that she afterwards married Ariifsaite, the present King of Tahiti? And do they know that a meeting was held at Papiti (Tahiti) by most of the missionaries in 1842, to consult whether they should allow her to enter the church again, on account of her habitual drunkenness ?—not, perhaps, worse than some of the missionaries at Tahiti when I was there."
Tahiti or Otaheite ?—The orthography of the name of the " modern Cytherea" has been unsettled, like almost all names of places, by inno- vation. The members of all our European Academies and Societies appear to have settled that it ought not to be written " Otaheite," but -no two of their members can agree how it ought to be written. Until the correct orthography shall have been fixed, it might be as well to adhere to that which has been rendered classical by Cook, Hawkes- worth, and Burney.
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