TAHITI.

New Zealander, Volume 1, Issue 24, 15 November 1845, Page 2

TAHITI.

By the arrival of the Star of China from Tahiti, we have some important information respecting the proceedings of the French on that island. It appears that, very strong fortifications have been erected, and other defences are in progress, so as to render the principal town (Papiete) a regular French settlement and garrison ; but the Native population are still so inveterate, in their animosity and opposition to the French, that the authority and establishment of the latter does not extend beyond four miles from the garrison. The Natives have dispersed themselves among the forests and fastnesses of the interior, and the French troops confine their operations within a limited circuit, lather than weaken their force by the harassing, destructive warfare of the bush, with a warlike determined native race. The French were using every endeavour, by vexatious restrictions, to drive away from the islands all Foreigners but themselves, andmany English settlers had left for the Sandwich Islands. Captain Burnard, who, it will be remembered, was in this Colony, five years since, was lately drowned by the upsetting of a whaleboat, manned by the natives, in which he was crossing to one of the islands, on which he had a sugar plantation. The Queen Pomare was still residing at Raiatea.