1819.] OCCURRENCES AT THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 329 



conduct, and the condition of all classes of the population of those 

 countries was materially benefited. The death of Baranof ren- 

 dered the introduction of these reforms less difficult ; and the 

 superintendence of the colonies has ever since been committed to 

 honorable and enlightened men, generally officers in the Russian 

 navy, under whose direction the abuses formerly prevailing to so 

 frightful an extent, have been gradually removed or abated.* 



About the same time, an event occurred, of great importance in 

 the history of a country which is, no doubt, destined materially to 

 influence the political condition of the north-western coasts and 

 regions of America. Tamahamaha, king of all the Sandwich 

 Islands, died in May, 1819, at the age of sixty-three, and was 

 succeeded in power by his son, or reputed son, Riho Riho, or 

 Tamahamaha II .f Of the merits and demerits of Tamahamaha, 

 it would be out of place here to speak at length. He was a chief 

 of note at the time of the discovery of the islands by Cook, when 

 his character had been already formed, and the seeds of much that 

 was evil had been sown, and had taken firm root in his mind. No 

 sooner, however, was he brought into contact with civilized men, 

 than he began to learn, and, what was more difficult, to unlearn. 

 His first objects were of a nature purely selfish. He sought power 

 to gratify his ambition and his thirst for pleasure, but he used it, 

 when obtained, for nobler ends ; and of all the sovereigns of the 

 earth, his contemporaries, no one certainly attempted or effected as 

 much, in proportion to his means, for the advancement of his 

 people, as this barbarian chief of a little ocean island. 



Upon the death of Tamahamaha, great changes were effected in 

 the affairs of the Sandwich Islands. The old king had resolutely 

 maintained the religion of his forefathers, though he suppressed 

 many of its horrible ceremonies and observances. Riho Riho, how- 

 ever, soon after his accession, abolished that religion, and embraced 

 the faith of the white men who came to his islands in great ships 

 from distant countries. His principal chiefs, Boki and Krymakoo, 

 (or Kalaimaku,) had been previously, in August, 1819, baptized 

 and received into the bosom of the Roman Catholic church by the 



* Statische und ethnographische Nachrichten, tlber die Russischen Besitzungen an 

 der Nordwestkdste von Amerika — Statistical and ethnographical Notices concerning 

 the Russian Possessions on the North- West Coasts of America — by Admiral von 

 Wrangel, late governor-general of those countries, published at St. Petersburg, 

 in 1839. 



t These names are now generally written Liho Liho and Kamehamaha. 



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