Under the influence of liberal but more morally stringent laws, Tahiti might speedily be raised to the position of a great emporium of the Southern seas, the Singapore of Oceania. Under the French Protectorate, on the contrary, the island, with its population long since renowned for indolence and sensuality, has become, in fact, what a French captain once jocularly termed it, "La Nouvelle Cythère!"
Although the Society Islands are by no means a French penal settlement (the climate being possibly _too healthy_), there are, nevertheless, both at Tahiti and Nukahiwa, a few men, rather politically discontented than downright dangerous, whom a merciful interpretation of French martial law has exempted from banishment to Cayenne, (that name of terror![96]) and whom we might almost say that a beneficent destiny has transported to the shores of the South Sea. One of these political offenders, named Longomasino, has to thank the visit of the Austrian frigate to Papeete for his restoration to liberty. He had been a journalist at Toulouse in 1851, and maintained a zealous correspondence with some of the most intimate hangers-on upon Louis Napoleon, till the _coup d'état_ revealed the French ruler's projects, and Longomasino joined the camp of the opponents of the new empire. His contumacious agitation against the new order of things led to his imprisonment and ultimate banishment. He was first transported to Nukahiwa, one of the Marquesas Islands, and afterwards received permission to settle at Papeete in Tahiti. Starting as a farrier, then an advocate, and finally a tavern-keeper, he was unable in any of these capacities to earn a subsistence for himself and his numerous family; the less so, that political intrigues deprived him of the right to practise at the bar, and this compelled him to have recourse to a business for which he had neither taste nor turn. If we understood matters aright, Longomasino, in the course of his juridical labours, had been able to do many a good turn to the Catholic bishop of Tahiti in his dispute with the French administration, and it was therefore less sympathy with the unfortunate political convict than the desire to play an adversary a trick by depriving him of an able adherent, which induced the Governor to ask our Commodore permission to give a free passage to Longomasino, who had been condemned to transportation for life. The request was willingly granted, and on the eve of our sailing Longomasino came on board the frigate, while his wife and family were to follow by a merchant-ship. The unhappy man, who had not words enough wherewith to express his gratitude for the friendly reception he experienced, still further gained the sympathies of all on board, with his melancholy fate, by his manly reticence on the subject of the injustice he had sustained.[97]