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Reports of Committee on Foreign Relations 1789-1901 Volume 6 pp392-393 300dpi scan (VERY LARGE!)

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New England people, commercial and maritime. Hence they are puritan and democratic in their ideas and tendencies, modified by a tropical climate. Their favorite songs and airs are American. Sherman's "Marching Through Georgia" and "John Brown's Soul is Marching On" are daily heard in the streets and in their schoolrooms. The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States has made the project of annexation to our Union more popular than ever both here and in the United States.

The native population is fast disappearing; the number existing is now estimated at 45,000, having decreased about 15,000 since the census of 1866. The number of foreigners in addition is between 5,000 and 6,000, two-thirds of whom are from the United States, and they own more than that proportion of foreign capital, as represented in the agriculture, commerce, navigation, and whale fisheries of the Kingdom.

This country and sovereignty will soon be left to the possession of foreigners, "to unlineal hands, no sons of theirs succeeding." To what foreign nation shall these islands belong if not to the great Republic? At the present those of foreign nativities hold all the important offices of government and control legislation, the judiciary, etc. Well disposed as the Government now is towards the United States and its resident citizens here, in course of time it may be otherwise, as was the case during our civil war.

I now proceed to state some points of a more general character, which should influence the U. S. Government in their decision of the policy of acquiring possession of this archipelago, their geographical position occupying, as it does, an important central, strategical point in the North Pacific Ocean, valuable, perhaps necessary, to the United States for a naval depot and coaling station, and to shelter and protect our commerce and navigation, which in this hemisphere is destined to increase enormously from our intercourse with the 500,000,000 population of China, Japan, and Australia. Humbolt predicted that the commerce on the Pacific would, in time, rival that on the Atlantic. A future generation, no doubt, will see the prophecy fulfilled.

The immense injury inflicted on American navigation and commerce by Great Britain in the war of 1812-1814 through her possessions of Bermuda and other West India Islands, as also that suffered by the English from French privateers from the Isle of France during the wars between those nations, are instances in proof of the necessity of anticipating and preventing, when we can, similar evils that may issue from these islands if held by other powers. Their proximity to the Pacific States of the Union, fine climate and soil, and tropical productions of sugar, coffee, rice, fruits, hides, goatskins, salt, cotton, fine wool, etc., required by the West, in exchange for flour, grain, lumber, shooks, and manufactures of cotton, wool, iron, and other articles are evidence of the commercial value of one to the other region.

Is it probable that any European power who may hereafter be at war with the United States will refrain from taking possession of this weak kingdom, in view of the great injury that could be done to our commerce through their acquisition of them?

It is said that at a proper time the United States may have the sovereignty of these islands without money and without price, except, perhaps, for purchase of the Crown and public lands, and moderate annuities to be given to the five or six high chiefs now living with uncertain claims as successors to the Crown.

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His Hawaiian Majesty, although only in his forty-first year, is liable to a sudden decease, owing to frequent attacks of difficulty in breathing and danger of suffocation from congestion caused by obesity. His weight is 300 pounds. He is sole survivor of the royal race of Kamehameha; unmarried, no heir, natural or adopted; possesses the constitutional prerogative of naming his successor, but it is believed he will not exercise it, from a superstitious belief his own death would follow immediately the act.

Prince Alexander and Lott Kamehameha (the former subsequently became the fourth Hawaiian King and the latter the fifth) and Dr. G. P. Judd, my informant, visited England in 1850 as Hawaiian commissioners.

Lord Palmerston, at their interview with him, said, in substance, "that the British Government desired the Hawaiian people to maintain proper government and preserve national independence. If they were unable to do so he recommended receiving a protectorate government under the United States or by becoming an integral part of that nation. Such," he thought, "was the destiny of the Hawaiian Islands arising from their proximity to the States of California and Oregon and natural dependence on those markets for exports and imports, together with probable extinction of the Hawaiian aboriginal population and its substitution by immigration from the United States." That advice seems sound and prophetic.

The following historical events in relation to these islands are thought worthy of revival in recollection:

February 25, 1843.—Lord George Paulet, of Her Britannic Majesty's ship Carysfort, obtained, by forceful measures, cession of the Hawaiian Islands to the Government of Great Britain, July 31, 1843. They were restored to their original sovereignty by the British Admiral Thomas.

November 28, 1843.—Joint convention of the English and French Governments, which acknowledged the independence of this archipelago and reciprocally promised never to take possession of any part of same. The United States Government was invited to be a party to the above but declined.

August, 1849.—Admiral Tromelin, with a French naval force, after making demands on the Hawaiian Government impossible to be complied with, took unresisted possession of the fort and Government buildings in Honolula, and blockaded the harbor. After a few weeks occupation of the place the French departed, leaving political affairs as they were previous to their arrival.

January, 1851.—A French naval force again appeared at Honolula, and threatened bombardment and destruction of the town. The King, Kamehameha III, with the Government, fearing it would be carried into effect, and in mortal dread of being brought under French rule similar to that placed by the latter over Tahiti, of the Society Islands, executed a deed of cession of all the Hawaiian Islands and their sovereignty forever in favor of the United States of America.

The document in a sealed envelope was placed in charge of Mr. Severance, United States commissioner here, with instructions to take formal official possession of the soil of these islands on occasion of the first hostile shot fired by the French. On learning the facts the latter desisted further aggressive acts and departed from the country.

Since that period the French authorities have pursued a conciliatory course in their relations with the Hawaiian Government, and fully of opinion, it is said, that a secret treaty exists between the United States Government and that of Hawaii, by which these islands pass into the

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