Kingdom of Tahiti Pomare was the Tahitian chieftain most friendly to the British. The additional British captains arriving at Tahiti accepted his claim to hegemony. They gave him guns in trade and helped him in his battles. Captain Cook gave him the advantage in a number of battles with rival forces during his last stay in Tahiti, circa 1779. British missionaries arrived, sent by a non-denominational Protestant group called the London Missionary Society. Pomare befriended the missionaries, and the missionaries favored both peace and Pomare, but, with the British unwilling to apply force to create order among the islands, the missionaries were unable
1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti vast international endeavor. Even though the Seven Years' War was going on between Great Britain and France, the British Admiralty granted safe passage for French astronomer, Alexandre Guy Pingré on his way to view the 1761 transit. During Cook's journey to Tahiti, the French government instructed all its men-of-war not to harm the "Endeavour", since it was ‘out on enterprises of service to all mankind'. With the Venus Transits, astronomers of the eighteenth century illustrated unity in the scientific community. The entente, however, passed by noted astronomers and surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, who were attacked by the French,