]6 HAWAIIAN GROUP. 



to state that the Americans as a body did not form an exception, but 

 that some of them left the native rulers to struggle as they best could 

 with a powerful enemy. 



The missionaries who were proscribed, declined to involve the king 

 and chiefs in further difficulties by giving advice, which, coming 

 from them, would have been obnoxious to the French commander, 

 but silently awaited the suffering which they seemed called upon to 

 undergo. 



The regent, Kekauluohi, and the governor, Kekuanaoa, succeeded 

 after some negotiation in obtaining a delay of the threatened hostili- 

 ties, until the king, who had been sent for, should arrive from Maui, 

 or until a sufficient time should be allowed for his so doing ; and 

 Haalilio was sent on board the frigate as a hostage, for the execution 

 of the treaty they were required to sign. The time which was thus 

 allowed to intervene, was spent on the side of the foreigners in creating 

 alarm, and holding up in dismal colours the prospect of the bloodshed 

 and rapine that were to fall on the devoted community, in case the 

 demands of the French captain were not complied with ; and on the 

 part of the chiefs in forming an efficient police to suppress any intes- 

 tine commotion. Their conduct ought to have put to the blush those 

 whose property they thus prepared to guard, and I can conceive no- 

 thing more disgraceful than the conduct of the foreigners on this 

 occasion. Even the American consul fell in the first instance into an 

 error, in not asserting the right of his flag to protect all Americans, 

 and in not throwing back upon the French commander the unmanly 

 threat he had uttered against the missionaries and their families. He, 

 however, fully retrieved his error before the affair ended. 



It would appear that the sum demanded by Captain Laplace had 

 been made so large by the advice of the French consul, who knew that 

 the resources of the native government would not enable them to raise 

 it, and who hoped that, in lieu of it, any commercial arrangements he 

 might choose to dictate would be granted, or that a good pretext would 

 exist for the occupation of the island by the French, either of which 

 might be turned to his (the consul's) pecuniary advantage. The same 

 reasons operated in a different manner upon the other foreign residents ; 

 for after their first alarm had somewhat subsided, they became aware 

 of the injury to which the latter alternative would have subjected them, 

 while from actual hostilities they would be the greatest sufferers ; and 

 thus, to the great disappointment of the French consul, they determined 

 to lend the demanded sum to the government. The king did not arrive 

 at the specified time ; but the regent and governor, being thus furnished 

 with funds, at a high rate of interest, signed the treaty. 



