summation of this long-considered project, in the year 1875, has been considered in a previous chapter. The vigorous words of Secretary Blaine, before quoted,* served beyond question to impress firmly upon the minds of European statesmen, and especially of the English, that any interference upon their part with the Hawaiian Islands, in their relations to this country, would be steadily and sharply resented.

The jealousy of the British government at the rapidly increasing intimacy between the United States and Hawaii soon became more apparent. In the autumn of the year 1874 it was determined by King Kalakaua that he would pay a formal visit to the United States for the purpose of meeting the American people and studying our institutions. This purpose he carried into effect, although the British and French commissioners remonstrated against the plan, alleging the political condition of the Islands as their pretext for interference. "I am of the belief," wrote Minister Pierce, "that they are not actuated therein by a real regard for the welfare

* Ante, p. 50.

of this nation, but by a desire to throw obstacles in the way of, and prevent, if possible, closer relations taking place between Hawaii and the United States."

The king was conveyed to San Francisco on the United States steamship Benicia; and after a tour in this country, of several weeks, he returned to his kingdom, being conveyed thither on board the United States steamship Pensacola.

The execution of the treaty of reciprocity, which followed closely after the return of the king to his home, must be regarded as having received a large impetus from his visit to this country. The attitude of Great Britain toward Hawaii, approaching hostility, which succeeded the promulgation of this treaty, has already been discussed, together with Mr. Blaine's vigorous attitude.

The position taken by the government at Washington, while it served to check any forcible movement which might have been contemplated by the British government to attain its ends, did not wholly allay irritation. Long-continued diplomatic correspondence, including the interchange of commissioners

between Great Britain and Hawaii, was followed by equally vigorous discussion of other issues. In all of these controversies, Minister Wodehouse was an earnest participant, never failing to display a strong personal prejudice against the United States and everything American. The subject of coolie immigration into the Islands from British India, and a revival of the half-forgotten Lackawanna incident, served to keep alive the embers of British jealousy. This feeling at length became so apparent that Mr. Blaine, now President Arthur's Secretary of State, in December, 1881, took occasion to write :

It [this government ] firmly believes that the position of the Hawaiian Islands, as the key to the dominion of the American Pacific, demands their benevolent neutrality, to which end it will earnestly co-operate with the native government. And if, through any cause, the maintenance of such a position of benevolent neutrality should be found by Hawaii to be impracticable, this government would then unhesitatingly meet the altered situation by seeking an avowedly American solution for the grave issues presented.

In December of the same year Mr. Blaine addressed a confidential communication to Hon. James M. Comly, then minister of the United States at Honolulu, in which that official was instructed, in view of the commercial and agricultural possibilities of the Islands, to give close attention to the subject, with an especial view to a possible future annexation of the Islands. He also suggested that a Hawaiian homestead act, for the benefit of actual American settlers, might be in turn supplemented in the United States by voluntarily organized emigration schemes and co-operative aid to bona-fide settlers.

Two years later than this Mr. Frelinghuysen who had succeeded Mr. Blaine at the head of the State Department in President Arthur's cabinet-received an appeal from the Hawaiian government to join with the king in a protest of grave import. Great Britain and France had been showing great activity in extending their possessions in Polynesia, various groups of islands having been seized and absorbed by one or the other of these powers. It was in protesting against these territorial extensions that King Kala

kaua desired the co-operation of the United States. The position assumed by the government at Washington in this matter is significant as showing its exceptional attitude toward its relations to the Hawaiian Islands, while keeping aloof from all appearance of interference in other and more remote regions of Oceanica. "While we could not," wrote Mr. Frelinghuysen, in declining to join in the protest, "view with complacency any movement tending to the extinction of the national life of the intimately connected commonwealths of the Northern Pacific, the attitude of this government toward the distant outlying groups of Polynesia is necessarily different."