PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
413 
with this precious wood, attempted to conduct this trade with his own 
resources, and sent a schooner bearing his flag to Canton ; but, owing to 
the forms and impositions practised in China, and other circumstances 
which he could not control, the speculation failed, and this advan- 
tageous trade has since been carried on by the Americans. 
In all these plans for the benefit of his country, for the intro- 
duction of civilization among his subjects, and for the establishment 
of his assumed authority, Tamehameha was greatly indebted to the 
advice and assistance of two respectable English seamen. Young and 
Davis, whom he persuaded to remain in the islands. Their services 
were not unrequited by the great chief, whose generous disposition and 
intimate knowledge of human nature induced him to bestow upon them 
both rank and fortune, by raising them to the station of chiefs, and 
giving them estates. 'I'hey in return proved grateful to their benefactor, 
and conducted themselves so properly that every visiter to the islands 
has spoken of them in the highest terms. Davis died in 1808, and 
was buried at Woahoo, where the place of his interment is marked by a 
humble tombstone : Young still survives, at the advanced age of eighty- 
two. Besides these advisers, Tamehameha had a faithful and wise counsel- 
lor in Krymakoo, afterwards better known by the appellation of Billy Pitt. 
I'amehameha having seen his country emerge from barbarism Under 
his well-directed efforts, and having conferred upon it other important 
benefits, died in May 1819, at the age of sixty- three. His biographer 
will do him injustice if he does not rank him, however hmited his 
sphere, and limited his means, among those great men who, like our 
Alfred, and Peter the Great of Bussia, have rescued their countries 
from barbarism, and who are justly esteemed the benefactors of man- 
kind. His loss as a governor, and as a father to his people, was uni- 
versally felt by his subjects. It is painful to relate that, though his 
death occurred so recently, several human victims were sacrificed to 
his manes by the priests in the morais ; and, according to the custom 
of the islands, some who were warmly attached to him committed 
suicide, in order to accompany his corpse to the grave; while great 
numbers knocked out their front teeth, and otherwise mutilated and 
disfigured themselves. 
CHAP. 
XV. 
Jan. 
1827. 
