aOd APPENDIX 
persisted in, it will destroy all stability of purpose and extended aim of statesman- 
ship; and, while it generates a class who are willing to become pliant tools of 
power in return for official emolument, it will ultimately affect the hopes and the 
enterprise of all those industrious citizens who are willing to labor and amass 
wealtli by a slow, but safe course of national policy, wisely adopted and steadily 
pursued. 
It was not my purpose, however, to address you a homily on national politics 
when I commenced this letter ; but I thought these remarks altogether proper, as 
introductory to some account of the character, situation, and resources of the 
Hawaiian Islands and the Californias, in connection with the observations I design 
making upon our wide-spread interests in the Pacific, the Indian Seas, and the 
Western Coast of the Americas, and the encroachments of England. 
I will proceed, then, without further preface, to offer some notices of the Sand- 
wich Islands, and afterward of the Californias, showing their great importance, at 
least, to the trade of our country. 
The eight Hawaiian Islands form a volcanic group in the Pacific, lying between 
18° 50' and 22° 20' N. latitude, and 154° 53' and 160° 15' W. longitude, embracing 
a surface of rather more than six thousand square miles, of which the Island of 
Hawaii contains about four thousand. The whole population is estimated at one 
hundred and nine thousand, and although the soil is in many places not of a kindly 
character, and better adapted to grazing than agriculture, yet, in the upland valleys, 
there are extensive patches of rich land that may be easily cultivated, and capable 
of producing two crops of wheat annually. This, however, is all the better for the 
natives, as the comparative poverty of the earth requires the constant care of the 
laborer, and is, therefore, more likely to create an industrious class than in more 
prolific climates. 
On the low grounds, coffee, sugar, tobacco, cotton, mulberry and cocoa, may be 
readily produced ; and to these may be added, yams, potatoes, cocoanuts, bread- 
fruit, arrow-root, the kalo, or aurum esculentum ; and among fruits, the strawberry, 
raspberry, ohelo, melons, chirimoyas, limes, oranges, guyavas, pine-apples, grapes, 
peaches, figs, citrons, tamarinds and Italo. Oil may be easily extracted from the 
nut of the kukui tree. 
In former times, one of the chief productions of these Islands was sandal-wood, 
with which the forests abounded. In the year ending in March, 1832, three 
hundred and ninety-five tuns of this article, valued at seventy-four thousand four 
hundred and seventy-one dollars, were imported into China from various places. 
In 1816 it was the chief source of revenue, and became, also, the chief source of 
the demoralization of this group. In that year, four hundred thousand dollars 
worth was exported to the Indies, where it was used by the Hindoos in their reli- 
gious ceremonials, and by the Chinese in various manufactures of articles of 
luxury and taste. So great, however, was the demand, and so easily satisfied in the 
forests of the Sandwich Islands, that the natives were tempted by a ready sale to 
destroy almost every tree ; until, under a wiser administration of their interests, they 
entirely forbade the cutting of the timber. The wood is represented as again be- 
ginning to flourish ; so that, in the course of a few years, it will be made once 
more a source of fruitful revenue. 
Besides the sandal-wood, a number of other richly-veined woods are found, and 
are said to be as valuable for articles of furniture, as the choicest products of the Bra- 
zilian forests. 
