The 15 manuscript items on this microfilm were bought by the Territory of French Polynesia at an auction of Pacific manuscripts in Paris in June, 1969. They were formerly part of the Ropiteau-O'Reilly collection.

The 15 items are:

1. A six-page account of Tahiti by Chenard de la Giraudais, commander of 'l'Etoile', the consort of Bougainville's ship 'La Boudeuse', which visited Tahiti in April, 1768.
2. Letter written in Tahiti on February 6, 1799, by the L.M.S. missionary John Harris.
3. Journal of the missionaries Henry Nott and James Elder describing a preaching tour, Tahiti in 1802.
4. Letter from King Pomare II to the L.M.S., London, dated January 1, 1807.
5. Journal kept by the missionaries William Henry and John Davies during a preaching tour on the island of Huahine in 1809.
6. Letter from Pomare II dated September 25, 1812, to the missionaries on Moorea informing them of his determination to abandon false gods and ancient rites against evil spirits.
7. Letter from the missionaries John Williams, L.E. Threlkeld and J.M. Orsmond from Raiatea to the L.M.S. in London, dated September 5, 1819. Collective report on affairs at the missions on Raiatea and Tahaa.
8. Letter from the missionary George Platt from Bora Bora, dated May 28, 1828, describing a visit to the island of Maupiti.
9. Letter from Queen Pomare IV and her second husband Ariifaaite to the missionary Henry Nott dated February 4, 1836, asking to be readmitted to church membership.
10. Letterbook (pp71) copies of 19 letters by George Pritchard, British Consul in Tahiti - November 26 1836 to February 15 1837.
11. May 11, 1846 letter from Queen Pomare IV at Raiatea to the directors, L.M.S., stating she would never live under the French protectorate.
12. 94-page report, 'Look Again, or a few observations on the affairs of Tahiti from 1845 to 1849 by an eye-witness' by Rev. J.M. Orsmond to President of France.
13. & 14. Letters from Queen Pomare IV to President of France (August 26, 1851) re government of her country and French Governor (September 18, 1872) re funeral of her small daughter.
14. Account book 1877-1882 by Pomare V Tahiti's last king, d.1891

Extracts on Tahiti, French Polynesia, copied from 'Transactions of the (London) Missionary Society', Vols. II and III.

Samuel Greatheed (d.1823) was one of the founders of the London Missionary Society. This work, written under the pen-name Nausistratus, was published as a series of articles in the Sailor's Magazine and Naval Miscellany, London, 1820-21, Vol.1, p. 402-6 and 449-56, and Vol.2, p. 1-8. It deals with the Bounty mutiny and its aftermath.

The work is based on printed sources, the then-unpublished journal of James Morrison of the Bounty, and verbal communications from an officer of HMS Pandora, which was sent to the Pacific to find and arrest the Bounty mutineers. It includes a number of details not published elsewhere. For a brief account of Greatheed's interest in Bounty matters, see Rolf Du Rietz's Note sur l'Histoire des Manuscrits de James Morrison in Journal de James Morrison, Paris, 1966.

Captain William Driver (1803-1886) was born Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He went to sea aged 14, and made his first voyage to Fiji in quest of beche-de-mer in September, 1872, in the ship Clay under Captain Benjamin Vanderford. He spent 49 months in the South Seas beche-de-mer trade before returning to Salem. Given command of the Charles Doggett, he sailed for the Pacific again in January, 1831. He remained at sea until 1837 when he retired to Nashville, Tennessee.

The logbook is for the voyage of the Charles Doggett. It begins on January 30, 1831, when the ship was 2,098 sea miles from Salem en route to New Zealand, and ends in March, 1832, when the ship was gathering a cargo of beche-de-mer in Fiji. In the interval, calls were made at Tubuai, Tahiti (French Polynesia), Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Tahiti and Niuatoputapu (Tonga). Driver's visit to Pitcairn Island from Tahiti was for the purpose of returning 65 descendants of the Bounty mutineers, who had been moved from Pitcairn to Tahiti four months earlier as it was feared that their island was becoming overpopulated. Driver describes this episode in some detail in an 1871 memoir accompanying his logbook of the Charles Doggett.
See also the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, December 1969:17.

Captain William L. Hudson was commander of the US ship Peacock, one of the vessels of the United States Exploring Expedition to the Pacific 1838-42, commanded by Commodore Charles Wilkes.

The journal begins on 20 August 1838 and is preceded by a list of the officers and scientific corps of the United States Exploring Expedition and correspondence relating to it. It continues to 8 August 1840 and includes copies of correspondence exchanged during the voyage. The journal and preceding papers fill 567 pages. On p.564 is a summary of the voyage showing the dates of arrival at various ports. Places visited in the Pacific were: The Tuamotu Islands, Tahiti, Samoa, Lord Howe Island, Tonga and Fiji.

Alden was an officer in the sloop-of-war 'Vincennes', the flagship of the United States Exploring Expedition which spent four years in the Pacific under the command of Commodore Charles Wilkes.

The journal gives an account - but not a day-by-day account - of the Vincennes voyage which took in the Tuamotu Archipelago, Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, the Antarctic, Hawaii, the Gilbert (Kiribati), Ellice (Tuvalu) and Marshall Islands. See also PMB MS 124-146 and the Bureau's newsletter, Pambu, Dec. 1971:25, pp. 4-7.

A catalogue of the ethnographic items collected by the United States Exploring Expedition to the Pacific (1838-42) led by Commodore Charles Wilkes. The Expedition visited the Tuamotu Islands, Tahiti (in French Polynesia), Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Lord Howe Island, Australia, New Zealand/Aotearoa, Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), Marshall Islands, and Hawaii. The catalogue was prepared in 1846 by Titian Ramsay Peale, an artist-naturalist with the Expedition. A typescript version, prepared by the PMB, follows the original document on the microfilm. See also the Bureau's newsletter, Pambu, October-December 1971:25, pp. 4-7 and PMB MS 89 and MS 146.

The Rev. Joseph Johnston (1814-1892) left England for Tahiti as a missionary of the London Missionary Society in the ship 'Camden' in April 1838. He reached Tahiti in the following March, and served there until late 1849. In Tahiti he married Miss Harriet Platt, daughter of the Rev. George Platt. After his return to England in May 1850, he went to Fremantle, Western Australia, as a Congregational minister. He died there in 1892.

The microfilm contains the following documents:

• Diary kept in the Camden en route to Tahiti, 26 April-28 October 1838.
• A history and impression of Tahiti, with a narrative of the voyage in the Camden, 1838.
• Diaries kept in Tahiti, 8 November -14 December 1838; 28 May-6 November 1839; and 6 January-30 December 1840.
• Diary kept in the Camden during a tour of LMS mission stations in the Pacific, 16 March-19 July 1842.
• Diaries kept in Tahiti 2 March-26 March and 11 April-26 May 1839.
• Diaries kept in Tahiti, on return voyage to England, on voyage to Western Australia, and in Western Australia, July 1844-August 1852.
• Diaries kept in England, on voyage to Western Australia and in Fremantle, 1852-55, 1864-68, 1869-71.
• Letter from Johnston to Mr Gallop, dated Fremantle, 25 December 1884.
• Reminiscences of Mrs S.F. Moore (nee Eliza Mary Johnston), Johnston's daughter.

The papers are: 1. Documents concerning the appointment of a Danish Consul in Hawaii, 1846.

2. Printed reports of the Hawaiian Minister of the Interior, Attorney-General and Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Hawaiian Legislature, dated 21 May 1845. The Attorney-General's report is entitled On the Inferences of the Constitution (31pp.)
3. Official correspondence concerning the appointment of the First Danish Consul, E.A. Suwerkrop, and his successor Ludwig Holberg Anthon in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1849-50
4. A printed Order of the Privy Council defining the instructions to be given to the diplomatic agents and consuls of the Hawaiian Islands, 25 August 1848. (5pp.)
5. A printed Whalemens' Shipping List from Bush, Makee and Company, Lahaina, Maui, 1848 (list of whalers, date of arrival at Lahaina, name of master, where owned and details of cargo. Covers 103 ships in period 18 July - 25 November 1848)
6. Correspondence of Royal Danish Consulate, Papeete, Tahiti, 1872-94.

Records of the Societe de Etudes Oceaniennes:

1. Orders of the day of the Commanding Officer, Iles Sous le Vent, Society Islands, January-February, 1897.
2. Miscellaneous documents on Huahine and Raiatea, 1879-1891.
3. Notes on the ethnology of the Marquesas Islands by C. Noury, Capitaine de Fregate, Commandant of the Nukuhiva station, November 2, 1849. (Human sacrifice and The Origin of Fire in Marquesan and French).
4. Documents on the ethnology of the Society Islands gathered by C.F. Lavaud, Capitaine de Vaisseau, Commissaire de la Republique, Society Islands - dated July 16, 1849, and September 20, 1849 (Tahitian and French).
5. Genealogy of Ma'i, by Rene Calinaud, magistrate, Papeete, July 23, 1966.
6. Report on a mission to the Gambier Islands by Cdt. de la Motte Rouge, February, 1871.
7. Letters on the smallpox epidemic at Nukuhiva and Uapou, Marquesas, 1863. (Originals in Bishop Museum, Honolulu).
8. The Old Orsmond Manuscript.
9. Legend of the Lizard Mo'orea by the Chief of Mai'ao (French and local language).
10. Letter of Commandant Maxime Destremau, December 2, 1914. (Destremau was the commander of the French warship 'Zelee' when the German raiders 'Scharnhorst' and 'Gneisenau' bombarded Papeete on September 22, 1914).
11. An official document thanking the men who rescued the victims of the German raider 'Seeadler' from Mopelia Atoll in 1917.
12. Notes on the inland route from Papenoo to Mataiea, Tahiti, by M. Jay.
13. Report on lands owned by the Pomare Family, compiled by a secretary of Queen Pomare IV (in Tahitian).
14. Legends of the Society Islands and other papers.
15. Useful plants of Tahiti, by Edouard Butteaud.