HAWAIIAN GROUP. H 



posed to the improvements which are taking place in the morals and 

 habits of the Hawaiian people under the influence of the missionaries. 

 My position enabled me to hear the statements of both parties, and 

 although the heat of the dispute had in some degree abated, mutual 

 complaints were still made. By a comparison of the two statements, 

 the truth does not appear difficult to be reached. 



The party opposed to the missionaries were anxious to counteract 

 the influence they ascribe to them ; and for this purpose, when they 

 saw the old heathen practices and vicious habits of the people rapidly 

 vanishing, bethought themselves of the Roman Catholic priests, and 

 seem to have desired to excite a sectarian war as one of the most 

 effectual means of opposing the progress of the Protestant missionary 

 cause. For this purpose they held out inducements to those priests to 

 enter and establish themselves in the Hawaiian territory. This was in 

 direct defiance of the law, which had made the Protestant the esta- 

 blished and solely tolerated religion of the state. 



This principle, by which all forms of worship except one were 

 excluded, seems to have been adopted by the king and chiefs, in the 

 belief that two creeds would have tended to distract the minds of the 

 people, and produce contention and confusion. What share the mis- 

 sionaries had in bringing them to this conclusion, I found it impossible 

 clearly to ascertain; but by information obtained from those best 

 informed on the subject, I was satisfied that the accounts of the 

 persecutions undergone by Catholic converts, and of the cruelties 

 said to have been endured by them, were much exaggerated. Nor 

 were these in any case to be imputed directly to the missionaries, 

 who had in many instances endeavoured to prevent the infliction of 

 punishment for religious reasons. Of cruel treatment for this cause, 

 I could learn no authenticated instance, nor did I meet with any one 

 who could adduce facts from his own knowledge, although I sought 

 information from those inimical to the missionaries, as well as from 

 those who favour them. That the missionaries and their proselytes 

 entertain apprehensions of evil from the propagation of Romanism 

 is true, but I found less illiberality on the subject of religious forms 

 existing in the Hawaiian Islands than in any place I visited on the 

 cruise ; less than is entertained by opposing sects in our country ; and 

 far less than exists in Catholic countries against those who hold the 

 Protestant faith. 



In spite of the prohibitory law, it is a notorious and indisputable 

 fact, that the first Catholic priests, who landed in 1827, were kindly 

 treated by all classes of natives, and by the Protestant missionaries. 

 The American mission even furnished them with the books they had 



