[3] After the fall of the Second French Empire Morelli became director of food and restaurants for the Compagnie de navigation des paquebots de la Méditerranée (Mediterranean Packet Boat Navigation Company), owned by Count Jean Joseph Valéry,[3] He became one of the main partners of Count Valéry, whose shipping company had 25 ships in the western Mediterranean based in Marseille.
[3] The Valéry family abandoned their business in March 1883 and sold the remaining 11 ships of their fleet to a company organized by Morelli with other Corsican capitalists to fight the Compagnie Fraissinet hegemony on Corsica.
[3] It was founded on 9 March 1883 and served the ports of Marseille, Nice, Bastia, Ajaccio, Livorno, Calvi, L'Île-Rousse, Propriano and Bonifacio.
However, due to misunderstanding caused by the very slow communications between Paris and Port-au-Prince, the Haitians made a deal with another company before Morelli's ships arrived.
[3] During his election campaign a bonfire was lit beside his home in Marseille and drinks and food were offered to his supporters according to the island tradition.
[7] In 1886 Morelli's company was accused by Sampiero Porri (1857–1926) in the journal Le Pilori of giving Arène and Peraldi regular monthly cash payments in return for allocation of the postal concession.
[10] Morelli suffered from poor health, and this coupled with concerns about his Compagnie insulaire de navigation à vapeur kept him away from the senate, particularly from 1891.
[4] On 16 May 1892 Le Phare de la Corse reported that five steamers of the former Morelli company had been auctioned at the Marseille stock exchange for one million francs.
The Fraissinet company acquired the steamers Bocognano, Ville de Bastia, Comte Bacciochi, Persévérant and Evénement.
The collapse of his company caused the loss of the savings of several small capitalists who had lent money to Morelli.