armed and equipped at the expense of the Hawaiian treasury. The officers were required to take an oath of allegiance to the queen.

This condition of affairs could not long continue. The king at once, upon executing the forced cession of his dominions, addressed a communication to President Tyler, setting forth in detail the acts of the British naval captain, protesting against their injustice, and begging that he would "interpose the high influence of the United States with the Court of England," to the end that an impartial hearing might be granted, and that Her British Majesty might withdraw from the sovereignty of the Islands.

This appeal was not in vain; and, indeed, after the assurances so recently given, President Tyler could not refuse so reasonable a request. The matter was at once laid before the British government, not only by commissioners despatched to London by the king, but also by Hon. Edward Everett, minister of the United States to Great Britain. At about the same time that the Carysfort entered the harbor of Honolulu, bearing the de

mands of Lord George Paulet, Mr. Webster, in view of the recent French aggressions in the Islands and the reports concerning the attitude of Charlton, had addressed to Mr. Everett a note, calling his attention to the acknowledgment of the independence of the Islands in the President's message to Congress, already quoted, and stating that the President "would exceedingly regret that suspicion of a sinister purpose of any kind on the part of the United States should prevent England and France from adopting the same pacific, just, and conservative course toward the government and people of this remote but interesting group of Islands." In reply to this Mr. Everett had informed Mr. Webster that Lord Aberdeen had signified in behalf of the British government that the independence of the Islands would be distinctly recognized, and that the intimation had been made to the French ambassador at London that England could not agree to any encroachments on the Sandwich Islands. Το this the ambassador had replied that none were contemplated by France.

The intelligence that these Islands had

been seized by Lord George Paulet, in behalf of the British crown, was, in view of these recent assertions and assurances, received in London with no little consternation. It had placed Great Britain in the position of having acted in apparent bad faith, and the matter was at once given the serious attention of the government. The act of Lord George Paulet was distinctly disavowed, both to the Hawaiian commissioners, who had by this time arrived at London and presented their protest, and to Mr. Everett. Some hesitation was at first felt by the British government in promptly disclaiming sovereignty over the Islands, for the reason that France had recently made a seizure of and established a sovereignty over the Marquesas group of islands; and it was feared that similar movements were contemplated against the Hawaiian Islands. Indeed, it was reported that a French squadron was on its way to the Islands, for the purpose of making a seizure of them, at the very time when the Carysfort entered the harbor of Honolulu. On the twenty-eighth day of November, 1843, a convention was entered into between the Queen

of Great Britain and the King of France, in which the two nations mutually agreed "to consider the Sandwich Islands as an independent State, and never to take possession, either directly or under the title of protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed."

Unaware of the proceedings at London, and desirous of preserving the interests of the United States in the Islands, Commodore Kearney, U.S.N., who reached the Islands on the United States frigate Constellation, July 11, 1843, made a formal protest against the king's deed of cession. This prudent and patriotic act was, however, needless, as was soon after proved. On the twenty-sixth day of July the British ship Dublin, conveying Rear-Admiral Thomas of the British Navy, entered the harbor. This officer brought the agreeable news that the act of Lord George Paulet had been disavowed, and the deed of cession repudiated; and by open declaration he announced that "he does not accept of the provisional cession of the Hawaiian Islands, made on the twenty-fifth day of February, 1843, but that he considers

His Majesty Kamehameha III the legitimate king of those Islands; and he assures His Majesty that the sentiments of his sovereign toward him are those of unvarying friendship and esteem, that Her Majesty sincerely desires King Kamehameha to be treated as an independent sovereign, leaving the administration of justice in his own hands, the faithful discharge of which will promote his happiness and the prosperity of his dominions."

The flag of the Hawaiian monarchy was then restored to its place, the British flag removed, and the episode ended, the most momentous in its political bearings of those in which the young nation in the Pacific had yet been involved.