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"It must be remembered that in those days communication between the islands of the Pacific and the coast was very infrequent, depending on merchant ships that came from Boston twice a year, except for occasional chance vessels.
"Lord Paulet rightly conjectured that the Yankee merchants would jump at the offer to have all their business transacted at his expense, but he little dreamed of all the use that might be made of the opportunity he was giving them.
"The officers of the Boston, who would have been glad of an excuse for a forcible interference with his lordship's plans, not being allowed that pleasure, consoled themselves by giving a ball on board, to which the officers of the Carysfort were not invited.
"I was then a young merchant in Honolulu, and attended the ball with many other of the American residents. At its height I was quietly invited into the cabin of the Boston, where I found Capt. Long, Dr. Judd, previously a prominent American missionary, then acting as the King's minister, and other influential citizens and warm friends of the King. Here I was told of the King's desire to send an envoy to England to present his protest against Lord Paulet's act of violence, and his answer to the charges against him, and to demand the restitution of his sovereignty. I was informed also of the opportunity offered to the firm of Ladd & Co. of sending a messenger to the coast in the yacht.
"Ladd & Co., who were warm friends of the island Government, had proposed that the King should send a secret ambassador, in the character of their commercial agent, thus turning Lord Paulet's masterstroke against himself in the neatest possible way.
"I was asked if I would go in this double capacity of ostensible supercargo and actual minister plenipotentiary.
"Mr. Charles Brewer, who was one of the council, a noble-hearted man, with whom I was about associating myself in business—now enjoying a green old age in Boston—not only gave consent to my going, but agreed to advance for the King the necessary funds, and take his pay in fire-wood, all of the King's other revenues having been cut off.
"I readily accepted the commission. No time was to be lost. Lord Paulet had rechristened the Haikaika as 'Her Majesty's tender Albert, and was fitting her out with all possible dispatch.
"The King and his premier, a princess almost equal in rank, without whose signature none of his acts was valid, had left the island of Oahu immediately upon the cession, and in sullen dignity of despair "buried themselves among the mountains of the adjacent island of Maui, leaving Dr. Judd, his minister, to represent and protect his interests—a man of indomitable courage, unusual ability, and unflinching devotion to his sovereign.
"Those happy isles in that day did not boast a lawyer. My credentials were copied verbatim, except necessary variations, from the old Blue Book containing the credentials of John Adams as the first American minister to England. Mine were a commission as envoy extraordinary and minister plentipotentiary to the court of St. James from the native King of the Hawaiian Islands," the title Kamehameha was allowed by Lord Paulet to retain, with some half dozen other blank commissions signed by the King and premier, to be filled out by myself for other countries as occasion might require. These were rendered necessary by the uncertainty of my finding the King's other ambassadors,
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Haalileo and Richards, with whom, in case I did find them, I was to associate myself.
"The papers were drawn up by Dr. Judd and a confidential clerk at midnight, in the royal tomb in Honolulu, with a king's coffin for a table. So secret was it necessary to keep the transaction that even this clerk was not trusted with the name of the ambassador, which was left to be inserted by myself after I had sailed. The papers prepared, a canoe with picked crew of Kanakas was dispatched from a distant point of the island to summon His Majesty and his suite to a midnight council. Crossing the boisterous channel in this frail conveyance, they landed at midnight on the shores of Waikiki, a suburb of Honolulu, and in its cocoanut grove my credentials received the signature and seal of the king and his Kuhina-nui—"great minister"—Kekauluohi, the "Bigmouthed Queen." Then the King and his attendants returned to their mountains without Lord Paulet having a suspicion that they had ever left them.
"The American consul at Honolulu took advantage of the opportunity also to make me the bearer of his dispatches to Washington, with details of the cession, which would, of course, have momentous interest to the American Government, and the protest of the American residents against the act of Lord Paulet."
XVI. Also the following extracts from the history of the hawaiian islands, by james jackson jarves, published in 1846.
"The chiefs, fully sensible of their political wants, sent, by Mr. Richards, in 1836, to the United States to procure a suitable person to fill the situation of legal adviser and teacher in the new policy circumstances were forcing upon them. In this way they were backed by the opinion of the mission, who, desirous of preserving themselves from the responsibility, would gladly have seen it in able and disinterested hands. The wants of the chiefs were fully appreciated by the American board, but nothing was effected. Individuals of talent, by the time they have acquired the experience suitable for such a post, which in its real effect would have been equivalent to the supreme direction of public affairs, generally have fixed themselves in permanent relations at home.
"With all the modern favor in the cause of missions, and the very many excellent discourses yearly uttered from pulpits, we rarely see entire disinterestedness manifested in the middle-aged—those who have known the world and tasted its goods, however prepared they may be by those very qualifications for the posts they so industriously urge upon others. The path of novelty, enterprise, and benevolence is rarely filled by any except the young and enthusiastic. That the chiefs, relying on the philanthropy of any experienced public man to have complied with their request, should have failed is what might reasonably have been anticipated. A young man, ambitious of the influence if not of the actual power of a Peter the Great or an Alfred, on a petty scale, might readily have been found, but the chiefs were suspicious of youth. Desiring age and experience, they should have offered a salary equivalent to some of the highest posts in the United States. On such a contingency few objections would have been found unanswerable. The path of duty would have been opened to many blind to all other considerations. This is human nature, as we see it in the pulpit and on the bench. In every position it requires its motive power.
"It is said that the honorable Theo. L. Frelingshuysen was invited