1794.] PRETENDED CESSION OF OWYHEE TO GREAT BRITAIN. 251 



disappointments they had met from the traders, for whose conduct 

 I could invent no apology ; endeavoring to impress them with the 

 idea that, on submitting to the authority and protection of a superior 

 power, they might reasonably expect they would in future be less 

 liable to such abuses." Acting under these views, he conciliated 

 Tamahamaha by building for him a small vessel, on which the 

 guns taken from the schooner Fair American were mounted ; and, 

 having induced all the principal chiefs to meet him on the shore 

 near his ships, it was determined, at the assembly, that Owyhee 

 should be ceded to his Britannic majesty ; it being, however, 

 clearly understood, that no interference was to take place in the 

 religion, government, and domestic economy, of the island — "that 

 Tamahamaha, the chiefs, and priests, were to continue, as usual, to 

 officiate, with the same authority as before, in their respective stations, 

 and that no alteration in those particulars was in any degree thought 

 of or intended." So soon as this resolution was announced, Lieu- 

 tenant Puget, the commander of the Chatham, landed, displayed 

 the British colors, and took possession of the island in the name of 

 his sovereign ; after which a salute was fired from the vessels, and a 

 copper plate was deposited in a conspicuous place at the royal resi- 

 dence, bearing the following inscription : " On the 25th of February, 

 1794, Tamahamaha, king of Owyhee, in council with the principal 

 chiefs of the island, assembled on board his Britannic majesty's 

 sloop Discovery, in Karakakooa Bay, and, in presence of George 

 Vancouver, commander of the said sloop, Lieutenant Peter Puget, 

 commander of his said majesty's armed tender the Chatham, and 

 the other officers of the Discovery, after due consideration, unani- 

 mously ceded the said island of Owyhee to his Britannic majesty, 

 and acknowledged themselves to be subjects of Great Britain." 



That Vancouver assumed more than was warranted, in thus 

 asserting the cession of Owyhee, and the subjection of its chiefs to 

 Great Britain, is clear ; not only from the subsequent declarations 

 of the chiefs, that they only intended to place themselves under the 

 protection of that power, but also from the understanding estab- 

 lished between them and the navigator, that there was to be no 

 interference in their internal concerns. At farthest, the transaction, 

 even if ratified by the British government, can only be viewed as 

 an engagement, on the part of the islanders, not to cede their 

 country to any other nation, and, on the part of Great Britain, to 

 secure them against conquest or oppression by any other. Most 

 probably each of the parties merely desired to obtain for itself as 



