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departure of the Priests exercised that right which, according to the law of nations, all "the Powers that be" exercise in their own territories towards aliens. A British subject, a Mr. Giles, was prevented, through the influence of an American captain on the mind of Pomare, the King of Tahiti, from remaining on the island, and was necessitated to return to England, although sent out by the London Missionary Society for the purpose of benefitting the King! His Majesty exercised his own legitimate right, nor did Great Britain attempt its invasion. Had Mr. Giles resisted the intimation from the King to leave Tahiti, and subjected himself to be forcefully removed from the island, no human, no divine law, wou'd recognise his expulsion other than the deserts of his own temerity. History records a similar line of conduct in the Queen of England, who suffered not Parapaglia, with his courteous letters from the Pope, to land in England; and in the following year the Pope's nuncio received a similar refusal when a second attempt at the conversion of England was made.
To compel the re-admission of those aliens, the priests - the emissaries of a foreign Potentate - the French nation has been solicited, and has given its strength and power to make war in behalf of the Romish Pontiff! and a liberal King has compelled a Queen who had not twenty-one guns to comply with the enforced salute to your Most Christian Majesty's flag; and 2,000 dollars were demanded of a Sovereign who had no revenue, and whose Exchequer was nought! Your Most Christian Majesty has received the 2,000 dollars from a Queen who had but just emerged from barbarism and idolatry to the profession of the gospel of peace! and, but for British Christians, who instantly supplied the sum to prevent bloodshed, the pages of history would be sullied with the record of a victory to the dishonour of your Most Christian Majesty's fame.
America sent not her fleet to liberate her missionaries when held captive by the Burmese; nor did England unfurl her flag, and dispatch a ship of war, when the British missionaries were driven from Tahiti, and some of our numbers were martyred, in the attempt to introduce Christianity amongst the islanders; nor, more recently, when New Zealand ferocity drove English missionaries from their settled residence, plundered their habitations, and spoiled them of all their goods, no Christian missionary ever thought of soliciting for the cannon of England to thunder against their then persecutors, to enforce re-entrance. They knew that their Master's kingdom was not of this world, else would his servants fight; they asked not for fire from heaven, noe do their Master's precepts allow them to solicit fire from earthly Kings! No, your Majesty, England and her Christian missionaries have not so learned Christ.
When the Blessed Saviour, our Divine Lord and Master, sent forth his disciples to preach his gospel of peace, his precepts were, "Go forth as lambs amongst wolves," "When they persecute you in one city flee ye into another." "Into whatever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city which cleaveth on us we do wipe off against you." And faithful ministers of Christ believe in and dread the denunciation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Apostle Peter, that "They that take to the sword shall perish by the sword." But when Mahomet with his emissaries went to convert the East, "The sword was the key of heaven," and war or the Moslem faith the alternative!
Your Majesty is aware that the Roman Catholic priests, the emissaries of the Pope of Rome, went to the South Sea Islands, not to convert to the gospel of Christ, for that had been already received in truth, and idolatry overthrown; it was known that their object was not to represent your Majesty, not to reside as civil subjects of the French nation, but avowedly to subjugate the Tahitian nation, as well as every other to which they can gain access, to the assumed despotic power of the Pope of Rome! The Queen therefore prohibited their entrance, not as Frenchmen, your Majesty's civil subjects, but as Roman Catholic missionaries from the Pope; and in exercising that right on Christian principles, and according to the law of nations, doing no personal violence, your Most Christian Majesty will, it is hoped, be induced to consider that the subject is purely a question of religion, and not a matter of state, and to perceive the justice of returning the money levied on the Queen of Tahiti, and exacted at the point of the sword.
Praying that your Majesty may be preserved, blessed, and directed by Him through whom "Kings reign and Princes decree justice,"
I remain,
SIRE,
Your faithful servant in the gospel of Christ,
LANCELOT EDWARD THRELKELD
Printed by the "Herald" Office, Sydney.