vehicle of public instruction not less than of political power. It is thoroughly understood that the English language is the best medium, not only of commerce, but of civilization. The Hawaiians readily learn English, and its universal exclusion from their public instructions has caused them to experience a great public and private loss.

In closing this already long chapter, I can not, with propriety, omit some remarks once made by the Minister of Foreign Relations. In referring to the English language as it relates to French diplomacy and to commerce generally at the islands, he says:

"The misunderstanding of the French government upon the subject of language is, if possible, greater. Had the Hawaiian Islands been discovered by the celebrated La Perouse, and had French ships and merchants exclusively visited and conducted the trade of the islands for many years afterward, the French language would have been, in all probability, as current in the islands as the English has been, in all operations of trade, for the last fifty years; but Providence otherwise ordained. The islands were discovered by the famous Cook nearly seventy-three years ago. Up to the visit of VANCOUVER, fourteen years afterward, the English and Americans were the only foreigners having relations with the islands; it so continued for many succeeding years, during the existence of the fur-trade on the Northwest Coast. The islands afterward became the resort of American and English whale ships, and from all these natural causes the English language had gained such an ascendency, that both the Spaniard, DoN FRANCISCO DE PAULA MARIN, and the Frenchman, M. JEAN B. RIVES, the earliest regular interpreters employed by KAMEHAMEHA I. and KAMEHAMEHA II., had to exercise their functions through the medium of that language.

"So far as language goes, the United States and Great Britain are to be taken together. In this sense, the English language may be said to represent eight hundred and forty-five persons on the islands, and the French thirty-three-short of a proportion of four per cent.

INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 425

"In the trade of the islands, in the same sense, taking last year as a basis of calculation, and leaving out importations from California entirely, the English language represents an amount of $461,807, and the French an amount of $7633— short of a proportion of two per cent.

F Owing to the natural and inevitable result of the circumstances before mentioned, the English language is so indispensable to the transactions of all matters of business in the islands, that Chinese, Chilians, Columbians, Danes, Germans, Hawaiians, Italians, Japanese, Mexicans, all Polynesians, Portuguese, Prussians, Russians, Spaniards, Swedes, and even the French themselves, speak it-advertise their goods and wares, and send in their invoices, bills, &c., in that language. There is not one of you to whom all this is not notorious, but nothing of this kind seems to be known or believed in France. She considers that, under the second article of the treaty of the 26th of March, 1846, she has a right that her language should be as current here as the English, and hence the fourth article of the Declaration signed by M. PERRIN and myself on the 25th of March, published in the Polynesian on the 29th."*

CHAPTER XXXIII.

ANNEXATION OF THE GROUP.

Geographical Position of the Sandwich Islands.—Their Value argued from their Position.-Climate.-Diseases.-Capacity of the Soil.Importance of the Sandwich Islands to the United States Government.-Objections considered.-Recent Movements at the Islands. -Remonstrance of the British and French Consuls.-Reply of the United States Commissioner.-British and French Diplomacy.British and French Dominion. -Faith of European Nations. Reasons for "ANNEXATION."-Its Necessity.

IN the preceding pages I have attempted to sketch the physical character, the scenery, and the commerce of the * Annual Report of the Minister of Foreign Relations, 1851.

group; I have portrayed a variety of scenes and incidents which will tend to illustrate the political, moral, social, and religious condition of the people; I have glanced at the causes and extent of depopulation of the native races; and I have endeavored to show what that group may be rendered, and how that dying people may be brought back to life and activity by the mild sway of just and righteous laws, emanating from a good government. I have done this, not only as a record of what I have seen, but to prepare the way for a few remarks on the "Annexation" of that important group of islands to the United States of America.

In pursuing this theme, it may be proper to lay down a few general premises.

A mere glance at the map of the Western Hemisphere will show that the Sandwich or Hawaiian Islands- -as they are officially termed—are situated in the North Pacific Ocean, between latitude 18° 50′ and 22° 20′ N., and longitude 154° 53' and 160° 15' W. They are nearly equidistant from Central America, Mexico, California, and the Northwest Coast on the one side, and the Russian dominions, Japan, China, and the Philippine Islands on the other. From their relative position to the above countries and Australia on the south, they have been termed the " Half-way House," or the "Great Crossings of the Pacific." Vessels bound from San Francisco to China or Australia, stop at these islands, or pass within sight of them on their outward and return voyages.

The group consists of twelve islands, eight only of which are inhabited, the other being but barren rocks. Those inhabited are as follows:

THEIR VALUE AND POSITION.

427 The whole embrace a superficial area of about 6100 square miles.

The value of the group may be argued chiefly from their geographical position. Their equidistance from the chief ports and especially San Francisco on the western shores of the two continents of America, places them in a natural position to command the North Pacific Ocean. Gibraltar is not more the key to the Gates of Hercules, nor the island of Cuba to the Gulf Stream, than the Sandwich Islands are the natural defense of the North Pacific. Civilization points to them as the island-empire of that great ocean. A few years ago, that world of waters was rarely whitened by the track of a vessel. The trade-winds were almost the only messengers that sped among their innumerable islands, reposing beneath the soft smile of an eternal summer. Those lovely gems on the bosom of the deep remain unchanged; but not so the spirit of the times in which we live. The western shores of our continent have experienced the greatest transformation ever known in the history of the world, and that change can no more be chained to a single spot than the chariot of the sun can be stayed by a passing cloud. In times but just gone by, "our ships visited the Pacific to harpoon the whale; now ships can not be found to transact the business which calls them to its basin. America has already commenced the colonization of these shores, and the dark blue Pacific will soon be traversed by the keels of white-winged clippers, and plowed by the wheels of the steam-ship. The times hurry us along very fast, and the patriot and the statesman are called on imperatively to provide for the interests of the country, of commerce, and humanity on the Pacific. We can not pass these duties by, or leave them to chance, for we are in trust for human nature."

The familiar line of the poet,

"Westward the star of empire takes its way,"

is not unfrequently cited without remembering the splendid destinies to which it points. But it is the very genius of his

tory, the epitome of national grandeur, a just and impartial recognition of the true progress of man. To no nation, however, does this sentiment so fully apply as the new State of California. Its commerce, and the commerce of Central America, and of the western coast of South America, are but yet in their infancy. What Spanish wealth and Spanish Christianity failed to perform, after a fair trial, during nearly three hundred years, American activity and enterprise have accomplished in five times that number of days! When the contemplated thoroughfares shall have been constructed across the Continent, so as to bring the east and west nearer together by a more rapid communication, such a revolution in commerce will be effected as the world has never before seen. With the rapid increase of merchant-vessels, whose wealth shall be wafted over every part of Polynesia, a sort of commercial depôt will be needed between the East and West. Of this increase of commercial wealth, the United States will possess at least fifteen twentieths. This ratio they already possess. The com

merce of the Western United States is yet in its infancy. It will not be long before such a mighty tide of wealth will roll between California and the Orient as shall render the Pacific the "highway of nations" on a grander scale than the Atlantic now is. California will then sit empress over the Pacific. She will be the great outlet through which America shall send forth her arts, sciences, Christianity, and civil liberty to the remotest regions of the earth, teaching mankind their universality and unity, their mutual duty one to another, and their legitimate allegiance to national councils and properly organized governments. These splendid destinies once realized, it can not but be seen that Americans will need a sort of halfway house, a commercial depôt, in the North Pacific, precisely on the same principles as those by which Palmyra was long recognized as a stopping-place of the old Syrian merchants. Just such a place the Sandwich Islands may and must be rendered, subjected, at the same time, to American laws and protection; and for such a purpose they are eminently fitted by their great natural advantages.