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planned and executed, which ended most disastrously. Boki had been extravagant, and had encumbered himself with debts. A large amount of dollars was found in some manner to be owing to the Americans, and which it was arranged by the captain of a U.S. man-ofwar, who played the part of a national conscience, should be paid in sandal-wood. The crew of a vessel which arrived at Honolulu informed Boki that they had fallen in with an island in the South Pacific, which abounded with this valuable wood. Boki resolved to sail thither, though the direction was extremely vague, and, with force and arms if necessary, take possession of the island and its wood. Another account is, that Boki had resolved on conquering the New Hebrides, a group of islands three thousand miles distant from Hawaii.*

The Kaméhaméha,' a beautiful man-of-war brig, was fitted out, with the Becket,' a smaller vessel. Both ships were well furnished with arms, ammunition, and stores for colonizing. Five hundred people, including seamen, soldiers, and the foreigners, embarked in the two vessels. One hundred and seventy-nine crowded on board the 'Becket,' the burthen of which was one hundred tons! They sailed on the 2nd of September, a day of grief and tears to the inhabitants of Oahu, who stood weeping as they saw the ill-starred adventurers leave its shores. Boki, with all his faults, seems to have had something honest and noble in his nature; and as he took leave, he turned and addressed the people thus:Attend, my friends! Hear what I have to say. You know my sin is great:-it smells from Hawaii to Kauai:-it is enormous; and it is my own, and not another's. I am about to take a voyage to

* The Sandwich Islands, Alexander Simpson. London, 1843.

extinguish the debt of the King, and not for unworthy purposes.

The poor man who found that his offence is rank,-it smells to heaven,' and daringly resolved to steer into unknown seas in order to pay off his debt, was, in spite of his rashness, more honest than if he had gone through the Bankruptcy Court on his own petition.

The expedition arrived at the New Hebrides and landed on the island of Rotuma, where, like the Spanish adventurers in America, they treated the inhabitants with harshness, and made them cut sandal-wood. Boki then sailed in the Kaméhaméha' for Erromanga, an island only a few days distant from Rotuma. The 'Becket' had orders to follow him in ten days. Fate threw her black pall over the bold chief and his companions. Nothing was ever afterwards heard of the 'Kaméhaméha' or any of those on board. As they had a quantity of gunpowder with them, and were accustomed to smoke in the most careless manner, it has been thought probable that the ship was destroyed by an explosion. The companion ship, the 'Becket,' reached Erromanga, where the Hawaiians committed many outrages on the natives. Lives were lost in fighting, and an epidemic broke out amongst the adventurers, in which the leader, Manui, died, and many others. After a stay of five weeks at the island, to no purpose, the solitary little vessel set sail for Oahu. Her original company had been swelled by the addition of forty-seven natives of Rotuma; so making two hundred and twenty-six persons on board a vessel of one hundred tons. Nothing that the Ancient Mariner' could relate whilst he enchained listeners with his glittering eye approached the horrors which were enacted on this eventful voyage.

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Crowded with the sick, the dying, and the dead, the vessel became a floating charnel-house. The sufferings of the living were aggravated by famine. They lay under a burning sun, enduring agonies of thirst, and were destitute of medicines or medical skill. Feebler and fainter, day by day, arose the groans of the suffering passengers, and the wails of the almost equally helpless crew. The slow progress of the brig was tracked by corpses. The conduct of the foreigners, who seem to have been wrapped in the selfishness of despair, was barbarous, and its remembrance inflames the resentment of relations to this day. The dying, as well as the dead, were reported to have been cast overboard: and out of the two hundred and twentysix souls that composed the brig's living freight, but twenty returned,—and of these eight were foreigners. Twenty natives had been left at Rotuma on their way, some of whom afterwards found their way back. On the 3rd of August, 1830, the 'Becket' arrived at Honolulu; and as the news of the disaster spread, the voice of weeping and wailing was heard by night and by day. The loss of so many active, intelligent men was a severe blow to the nation.*

* Jarves, Hist. Hawaiian Islands.

Q

CHAPTER XV.

HISTORICAL SKETCH-THE STREAM BECOMES A RIVERREIGN OF KAMÉHAMÉHA III.

THE

HE Roman mission had gained a footing upon the islands, and was determined not to be dislodged. There were now three parties at work, and amongst them the natives fared ill. There was the government, which, inspired by the American independent missionaries, carried religious restrictions to a Puritanical extreme, enforcing them by punishments, so that innocent amusements ceased. Kaahumanu was much influenced by Mr. Bingham, the principal member of the mission, a sincere and disinterested man, possessing talent and energy, but injudicious in not considering the earthen vessels into which he was zealously pouring heavenly treasure. No punishment was considered by him and the associated government too great for the most venial offence. Riding on Sunday, even for foreigners, was forbidden; the healthy exercise of swimming, in which the people ever delighted, was actually abandoned; and police constables entered private houses, and, like the intruders so touchingly described by Mr. Lillyvick, without any 'with your leave' or 'by your leave,' walked away with the fermented liquids that might be on table.

Then there was the party of reaction. To this the

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young King inclined, who unfortunately evinced dissipated habits at an early age. It included most of the foreign trading residents, the foreigners,' as they were called par excellence, and a good many of the natives, who were discontented with the rigid rule under which they found themselves, and sought licence under the name of liberty. The traders or foreigners' as a community, though immoral, were not in every respect bad. They are described as 'an easy-going, free-living race; associating together on terms of peculiar amity, and indulging in frolics of the most extravagant description. There was little rivalry among them.' They seem almost to have made a joint stock of their profits, and were so careless or so trusting, that money and goods passed about amongst them without a written acknowledgment ever being thought of, and they scarcely ever entered into a settlement of accounts. When they wanted land for houses, the chiefs friendly to them used to give it, and it was sometimes received without any deed or written title. A bitter feud existed between them and the missionary party. They accused the latter of being the originators of the unwise restrictions of the government, and of holding back the inhabitants from advancement, in order to increase their own influence.

They viewed every action of the missionaries, however innocent or well meant, with suspicion; they called them,-and by frequently calling them so came to believe them to be,hypocrites even in religion; they supported a school for teaching native and half-caste children English, mainly because the system was opposed to the views of the missionaries; and they maintained a newspaper for several years, the chief aim of which was to attack their religious adversaries, and throw doubt and discredit on all their efforts.†

* A. Simpson, Progress of Events, &c.

+ Ibid.