AUTHOR'S PREFACE ΤΟ THE SECOND EDITION. I ENDEAVOURED in my volume on Hawaii, to give a short but clear account of the state and history of that kingdom. Since completing its pages, three years ago, the march of events there has been rapid and important. The extreme interest awakened in this country by the visit to England of the young and widowed Queen of Hawaii has called fresh attention to the islands; and the telescope has been, as it were, frequently turned towards their distant and faintlyshining cluster, as if endeavouring to separate it into its constituent and many-coloured spheres. It has, consequently, been thought desirable to re-edit my work, bringing the history down to the present time. In a series of five new chapters I have described the blow which fell upon Hawaii by the death of its young Prince Royal; the yet heavier grief of the people when their beloved sovereign prematurely died, at the close of 1863; the installation and progress of the English mission for planting a scion of the Reformed Episcopal Church in the North Pacific; the change in the Constitution effected by the present sovereign--which some have named the Coup d'Etat; and lastly, I have given a sketch of the life and important services of Robert Crichton Wyllie, whose death has lately taken place in the islands. On the appearance of my book a few angry comments were made on it, chiefly by or on account of the American missionaries. What I wrote, I strove to write impartially, without malice and without fear. One lady of American birth, but long resident in the islands, eminent in literature as in other walks of life, has suggested in print, that two gentlemen should set out from Honolulu to Europe, for the purpose of castigating -not my history, but myself. Such a step would seem a very laborious means for effecting a very small object. Should these correctors of the press arrive, they would perhaps find me different from what they had been led to suppose, and not the enemy or detractor of that great nation which is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh,' whose late agony of internal conflict we watched so sorrowfully. A closer acquaintance might elicit that English and American hearts beat more in unison than they even themselves suspect; and it is possible that ere our parting, we three might be found kneeling together in prayer to the Common Father, that He would, by ALL MEANS, send out the light and |