Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Barricades of sand bags were placed about the government buildings and offices, and preparations were made for defence. All the available arms in the city were brought into requisition, and were distributed among those who were willing to aid in the public defence. Boys and even women were armed with revolvers, and private houses as well as public buildings were securely guarded day and night. The permission granted by the Provisional Government to the American warship in the harbor, to land troops for the purpose of drill, was formally withdrawn. note addressed by Mr. Dole to Minister Willis, calling attention to Secretary Gresham's letter, and inquiring if the government of the United States designed to employ force to restore the queen, received only an evasive reply.

A

In the mean time Minister Willis was in frequent communication with the ex-queen, and her next friend, Mr. J. O. Carter. In these interviews he endeavored to induce her to modify the harshness of her intentions in case of her restoration. One point after another was yielded. The queen first con

sented to withdraw her declaration that those who had been chiefly instrumental in her overthrow should be beheaded. After granting this, she still insisted that they must be banished with their families, and that their property be confiscated. This point was for some days insisted upon, despite the urgent representations of the minister that a full amnesty was the only condition on which the President would act in her behalf. yielded the point of banishment, but still insisted on the confiscation of property.

Next she

At length, however, after many more consultations with Minister Willis, on the 18th of December, 1893, the ex-queen addressed a letter to him in these words:

I

"I must not feel vengeful to any of my people. If I am restored by the United States, I must forget myself, and remember only my dear people and my country. must forgive and forget the past, permitting no proscription or punishment of any one, but trusting that all will hereafter work together, in peace and friendship, for the good and for the glory of our beautiful and

once happy land. Asking you to bear to the President and to the government he represents a message of gratitude from me and from my people, and promising, with God's grace, to prove worthy of the confidence and friendship of your people, I am, etc.,

“LILIUOKALANI.”

Enclosed in this note to the American minister was a solemn engagement, signed by the ex-queen, that, if reinstated as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands, she would at once proclaim, unconditionally and without reserve, a full pardon and amnesty to all those who had participated in the revolution of January 17.

The conditions imposed by the President, as a prerequisite to his good offices, having now been fully met, Minister Willis proceeded to the exercise of the extreme power vested in him. Upon the same day on which exQueen Liliuokalani had signed her agreement, Mr. Dole addressed a note to Minister Willis, stating that he had been informed that the American minister was in communication with Liliuokalani, the ex-queen, with

a view of re-establishing the monarchy in the Hawaiian Islands, and demanding whether the minister was acting in any way hostile to the government to which he was accredited.

To this note Minister Willis made no direct reply, and, indeed, no reply whatever until the following day. On that day he forwarded to the Provisional Government a document, in which the declaration was made that the President of the United States was convinced that the overthrow of the queen's government had been accomplished, "if not instigated, encouraged and supported by the representative of " the United States government at Honolulu, and that it was accomplished mainly through the employment of the forces of the United States. The document ended with a formal demand upon the Provisional Government, in the name of the President of the United States, that it should promptly relinquish to the former queen her authority as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

At midnight on the twenty-third day of December, 1893, the reply of the Provisional Government to this demand was presented.

This reply, after reviewing the political situation which had prevailed in the Islands for nearly a year past, declared that the matter in dispute between the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands and the former sovereign had never been submitted to the President of the United States for his arbitration, and that no power lay in the President or the government of the United States to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Hawaiian Islands; furthermore, that, if the fact existed, which was denied, that the revolution of January 17 was effected by the assistance of American arms, that matter was a question of discipline between the United States and its officials and employees, and not a question between it and the de facto government of the Islands. The reply closed with a respectful but firm refusal to entertain the proposition that the Provisional Government should relinquish its authority to the former queen.

Mr. Willis had been instructed by the Secretary of State, in a despatch sent on the 3d of December, that the queen should be informed that the President of the United States cannot use force without the authority

« AnteriorContinuar »