Having nearly been shipwrecked in a storm off Vavaʻu, they were not permitted to land, due to the influence of Methodists,[2] so they proceeded to drop off Father Pierre Bataillon and Brother Joseph-Xavier at Wallis, the main seat of the mission in Tonga.
[3] From there they traveled to Rotuma and then made for Sydney, where the bishop was able to consult with John Bede Polding, Apostolic Vicar of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land.
There Servant ministered to the Maori, and about fifty English and Irish Catholics who otherwise traveled to Sydney to perform their Easter duty or have children baptized.
[5] The Maori leader Papahurihia and his followers were sympathetic to the French Catholics and saw them as natural allies against the Protestant community well established at Hokianga.
In March 1840 Servant was at the Bay of Islands as Bishop Pompallier had asked for his assistance in writing instructions in the native language.
He felt that Pompallier was too easily persuaded to overpay for unnecessary expenses, much of which was funded by the Lyon-based Society for the Propagation of the Faith.