HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
 
King's ministers. This instrument was the consequence of the King's 
apprehension excited by the hostile attitude of France. It bore the 
following inscription in the Hawaiian language: 
The King requests the commissioner of the United States, in case the flag
of the 
United States is raised alcove the Hawaiian, that he will open the inclosed
and act 
accordingly. 
The terms of this deed provided that the kingdom should be held 
by the United States until a satisfactory adjustment of the dispute with

France, and, failing that end within a reasonable period, should be 
permanently transferred to them. (Appendix.) 
Answering Mr. Severance's series of dispatches on this subject, Mr. 
Webster, on the 14th of July, 1851, said: 
The Navy Department will receive instructions to place and to keep the naval

armament of the United States in the Pacific Ocean in such a state of strength
and 
preparation as shall be requisite for the preservation of the honor and dignity
of 
the United States and the safety of the Government of the Hawaiian Islands.

In a confidential dispatch of the same date Mr. Severance was di- 
rected to return to the Hawaiian Government the deed of cession 
placed in his hands. (Appendix.) 
The subject of annexation was not, however, abandoned in the corres- 
pondence by reason of Mr. Webster's- dispatch. Mr. Marcy, writing 
to Mr. Gregg, then United States commissioner there, on the 4th of 
April, 1854, discussed the question fully, and authorized the negotiation

of a treaty for the purpose, the terms of which he indicated. On the 
11th November following, a draft of a treaty acceptable to- the King 
was received with Mr. Gregg's dispatch No. 52 of September 15, 1854. 
(Appendix.) 
Stipulations were drawn in this-treaty for annuities aggregating three 
times the sum offered for that purpose by Mr. Marcy, and for the ad- 
mission of the Kingdom as a State of the Union. These provisions were 
objected to by this Government, but before any conclusion was reached 
the King, Kamehameha III, died, and was succeeded in February, 1855, 
by a prince who held views unfavorable to the project, and so the treaty

failed. (Appendix.) 
In 1855, on the 20th of July, a treaty of reciprocity was con- 
cluded at Washington by Mr. Marcy and Judge Lee, the King's com- 
missioner; but, although the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs 
appears to have been favorable to it, ratification failed, it is said, by

reason of the pressure of more important and absorbing questions, 
(Appendix.) 
Correspondence for several years following this incident is chiefly 
concerned with claims, complaints, and matters of routine. In 1863 the 
rank of the diplomatic officer of this Government was raised to that of 
minister resident, and James McBride, of Oregon, was appointed to 
that office. The conduct of the civil war so far diverted attention from

Hawaiian affairs that consideration of the subject of a desired treaty of

reciprocity was obliged, by Mr. Seward's engagements, to be deferredto 
a more tranquil period, and until the results of English and Southern 
influence there, exerted during the civil -war in the United States against

this Government, should be overcome. There are occasional references 
to annexation. (Appendix.) 
In December, 1866, Queen Emma, queen dowager of Hawaii, visited 
the United States on her way from England to Honolulu. 
On the 1st of February, 1867, Mr. McCook, our minister at Honolulu, 
was instructed that it was the desire to revive the subject of the reci-

procity treaty of 1855, but upon terms more liberal to the United 
 
14