Page:A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War.djvu/107

Rh northern isles, the natives have derived their first impressions of civilisation from traders, they have invariably deteriorated, and the white influence has been exerted to exclude all improving influences. On the other hand, throughout Polynesia, the missionaries were the first to occupy the field, where traders dared not venture, and in every case they so tamed the fierce savages that commerce naturally followed in their wake and under their protection. Yet even here no debt of gratitude is considered due to the successors of those early pioneers; and the antagonism of the traders to the missionaries is unfortunately notorious.

From what I have told you, you can gather that the transactions of the house of Godeffroy are carried out on a pretty extensive scale; and as all European goods are sold at a clear profit of a hundred per cent, exclusive of all expenses, they contrive to heap up riches at a very rapid rate. One of their peculiarities is, that they never insure their ships. They pay their shipmasters very low salaries, rarely exceeding £5 a-month, but supplement this sum by allowing them a commission of three per cent on the net profits of each voyage.

Another peculiarity, which is particularly annoying to the white community (and this is a point on which I speak feelingly), is that of despatching their ships from Apia with sealed orders, which are not opened till the vessel reaches a certain latitude, so that no one on board knows her destination. Consequently, however great a boon the chance of a passage might be to any person detained in the isles, or how valuable an opportunity of sending letters, ship after ship leaves this harbour without giving a hint of her intentions. The house of Godeffroy has not been the only purchaser of vast tracts of land in these isles. The Polynesian Land Company (whose claims to enormous tracts in the Fijian isles were somewhat upset by annexation, and the consequent necessity of proving their titles to their broad acres) carried on very pretty land speculations in Samoa, where they profess to have legally acquired about 300,000 acres on the four largest and most fertile islands. Their leader is a Mr Stewart, one of two brothers who have struck out for themselves very remarkable careers in these seas. The other