INTRODUCTION. In the autumn of 1839, being then an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, I made the descent of the Columbia, or Oregon River, from a northern defile of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. I spent some months of the year 1840 in the Oregon country, and made visits during the same year to the Sandwich Islands, and to Montery, the capital town, and San Francisco, the best harbour of California. Circumstances placed me, in the year 1842, in the position of political agent for Great Britain at the Sandwich Islands. I had, early, become convinced of the vital importance to British interests in the Pacific, of the sovereignty of that interesting group, and of its intrinsic value for the purpose of colonization. I felt confident of the right of England to this sovereignty: a right grounded on priority of discovery, and repeated cession by the native chiefs. Its virtual subjection to American rulers was self-evident; and the danger of its being seized upon by the naval squadrons of France imminent. Thus influenced, I, unhesitatingly, took a prominent part in the bloodless coup de main by which the sovereignty of the group was, in February 1843, placed at the command of Her Britannic Majesty.* Immediately after its consummation, I took my departure for Britain,† charged with the selfimposed mission of personally representing to the Members of Her Majesty's Government, the importance of the acquisition thus made to Her Majesty's dominions. Unknown, unfriended, utterly unacquainted * Of the circumstances connected with this affair, I have given a full detail in a pamphlet, "The Sandwich Islands," published by Smith and Elder, in October 1843. † My first progress was in a very small schooner, commanded by a very young midshipman of the Carysfort frigate, to Mazattan on the west coast of Mexico. I traversed the Republic to Vera Cruz. There I was much disposed to have taken passage vid the United States, but luckily found a Spanish coaster which landed me at Cuba. I say luckily, because the intense feeling excited in the States, by the receipt of intelligence of the measure in which I had been concerned, would have ensured me at least much insult, perchance in the Southern districts drawn upon me the tender mercies of Judge Lynch. with politics and with politicians, my representations, though received with every courtesy, I may say kindness, by Lord Aberdeen and his colleagues in the Cabinet, were without effect. A recognition of the Sandwich Islands as an independent kingdom (!) was the decision arrived at. "That decision was taken," to use the words of the organ of the Foreign Office, "not from any want either of right (of sovereignty) or power to defend that right; but simply because it was held to be inexpedient to found a colonial establishment, and to awaken the jealousy of other countries for no purpose that cannot be equally secured by the maintenance of the independence of the country." I considered then-still stronger reasons have I for considering now-that this was a most "untoward" decision. It was, as we have seen, formed avowedly on the ground of expediency; and was, I have the strongest reasons to believe, the result of interference in the matter by the Government of the United States. There the value to Great Britain of this acquisition of territory was at once appreciated. A naval station in the Pacific which should completely command the northern part of that ocean, including the western route to China, and the shores of the coveted |