10 HAWAIIAN GROUP. 



highly prepossesed in his favour, I was not prepared to find him so 

 easy and gentlemanly in his manners as he now appeared. He was 

 alone when he received us, and in a few minutes, we found that he was 

 able to express himself very intelligibly in English, and was quick in 

 comprehending what was said to him. 



He was found at one end of the large grass-house built for him by 

 the Governor Kekuanaoa.* He received us in a friendly manner. 

 From the representations that had been made to me, I had been led to 

 believe that the king was not only dull of apprehension, but had little 

 disposition to engage in or talk of the affairs of government ; I found 

 him, on the contrary, exhibiting an intimate acquaintance with them. 

 He entered fully and frankly in the discussion of all the matters in 

 relation to which disputes had arisen between him and foreign nations; 

 and I, on the other hand, was desirous to elicit his views with regard 

 to the difficulties he had for the last year or two encountered, and 

 learn the feelings he had experienced in the arduous situations in which 

 he had been placed. 



He spoke of the manner in which foreigners had obtruded them- 

 selves into the affairs of his government, so that no one of its acts was 

 permitted to pass without his being called, in a rude and uncivil manner, 

 to account for it. He stated that he found great difficulty in acting 

 correctly ; for foreigners, whom he and his chiefs had treated with 

 every possible attention, had from interested motives, urged measures 

 upon him which he knew to be wrong, and had, in many cases, 

 abused the confidence he had placed in them. He expressed the 

 strongest desire to do right, and to protect his people from evil influ- 

 ences and the encroachments of designing persons, by wholesome laws 

 and regulations. 



The treaty which he had been compelled to sign by Captain La- 

 place, of the French frigate Artemise, was alluded to by him in terms 

 of mortification : he regretted that he had done an act and yielded to 

 a measure which had rendered nugatory his municipal laws and regu- 

 lations. 



To explain this part of the conversation, it will be necessary to 

 relate some particulars of the circumstances which led to this inter- 

 ference of a French commander with the laws and ordinances of a 

 weak, and, as I think it will appear clearly, an unoffending people. 



There has always been a party among the foreign residents op- 



* This building is about sixty feet long by forty feet wide, and contains only one room, 

 which may, however, be divided by movable screens into several apartments. The floor 

 was covered with mats. The whole was well adapted to the heat of the climate, and the 

 smell of the sweet-scented grass was agreeable and refreshing. 



