most of the mercantile class of the city, shopkeepers, mechanics, manufacturers,—in fact, all the middle class of the people. Nor is the reason at all difficult to state by any one who knows our community. When the people of native and part native birth prosper, business is good and the community is prosperous. The prosperity brought by the reciprocity treaty and the sugar plantations had disappointed our expectations. The money went into the hands of the few, who safely invested in foreign interests and enterprises every dollar of it, save the amount of wages paid to foreign and Mongolian labor. But the advantages to be received from the charter of this, which in some American localities is called a "gift enterprise," would be immediately put in circulation among our own people, because spent on much-needed public works, and thus would bring some little prosperity to them parallel to that enjoyed by foreigners.

I am not defending lotteries. They are not native productions of my country, but introduced into our "heathen" land by so-called Christians, from a Christian nation, who have erected monuments, universities, and legislative halls by that method. I am simply explaining what this bill intended, because, by the reports sent to their correspondents in the United States, the missionary party represented me as a grand vender of lottery tickets, by which I was to become rich and powerful; whereas the scheme, be it good or bad, would not have been to my individual profit, but to that of my native people.

Third, I proposed to issue licenses for the impor

tation and sale of opium. I did think it would be wise to adopt measures for restricting and controlling a trade which it is impossible to suppress. With a Chinese population of over twenty thousand persons, it is absolutely impossible to prevent smuggling, unlawful trade, bribery, corruption, and every abuse. There were more scandals connected with the opium traffic than I have the time to notice here. Some of the most prominent citizens have been connected with these affairs, and frauds have been unearthed even in the custom-house itself. The names of Mr. Parks, of Mr. W. F. Allen, and more recently of Mr. Henry Waterhouse, have been associated with some very questionable dealings in this drug; and it may be doubted whether the practice of hushing up such matters is favorable to good morals in any community. The Provisional Government seems to have had no scruples in the matter; for the sons of the missionaries exported a large quantity of confiscated opium, and sold it for fifty thousand dollars in British Columbia.

The British government has long since adopted license instead of prohibition, and the statute proposed among the final acts of my government was drawn from one in use in the British colonies; yet I have still to learn that there has been any proposition on the part of the pious people of London to dethrone Her Majesty Queen Victoria for issuing such licenses.

I have thus, for the first and only time, reviewed the position of my opponents in regard to the only public charges which they made against my administration of government; and the reader can judge if all or any of

them are of a nature to justify revolt against authority, and the summoning of aid of a foreign vessel of war, as they outrageously stated at the time,"to protect American life and property!"

My appointments of cabinet officers were never given the test of experience; because the ministry was invariably voted out by the legislature "for want of confidence" without just cause, and in one notable instance within an hour or so from the time when I sent in the names. It is a matter of great satisfaction to me when I look back at the actions of that legislature, to reflect that none of the ministers of my selection have ever been voted out for any crime, for any defalcation in their accounts, or for failure in the exercise of their duties in public office. But it is a source of sincere regret to me that the members of that legislative assembly should have so forgotten themselves, the dignity of their position, and the responsibility with which the people had intrusted them as representatives, as to permit themselves to behave in such an unpatriotic manner.

The Macfarlane cabinet was one of the greatest popularity amongst the Hawaiian people on account of the stand Mr. Macfarlane took in the House, and his courage in replying to the false and uncalled-for speeches of J. L. Stevens, the American Minister resident.

CHAPTER XL

OVERTHROW OF THE MONARCHY

AFTER the so-called Provisional Government had been recognized by Minister Stevens, and I had referred in writing my case to the United States, there was no more for me to do but retire in peace to my private residence, there to await the decision of the United States government. This I did, and cautioned the leaders of my people to avoid riot or resistance, and to await tranquilly, as I was doing, the result of my appeal to the power to whom alone I had yielded my authority. While in Washington in 1897, I had prepared for me as brief a statement as possible from official documents there of the reference of my case to the decision of the United States government as arbitrator in the matter.1

It has been my endeavor, in these recollections, to avoid speaking evil of any person, unless absolutely demanded by the exigencies of my case before the public. I simply state facts, and let others form their own judgment of the individuals. But of Minister John L. Stevens it must be said that he was either mentally incapable of recognizing what is to be expected of a gentleman, to say nothing of a diplomatist, or he was decidedly in league with those persons who had con1 A copy will be found in Appendix C.

spired against the peace of Hawaii from the date of the "Queen's Jubilee" in 1887. Several times in my presence, to which he had access by virtue of his official position, he conducted himself with such a disregard of good manners as to excite the comment of my friends.

His official despatches to his own government, from the very first days of his landing, abound in statements. to prove (according to his view) the great advantage of an overthrow of the monarchy, and a cession of my domains to the rule of the United States. His own daughter went as a messenger to the largest one of the islands of my kingdom to secure names for a petition for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the American Union, and by an accident lost her life, with the roll containing the few names she had secured. All this took place while he was presumed to be a friendly minister to a friendly power, and when my minister was under the same relation to his government. Of his re

marks regarding myself personally I will take no notice, further than to say that, by his invitation, I attended a very delightful lunch party at his house a few months before the United States troops were landed.

Mr. Albert F. Willis arrived in Honolulu on Saturday, the fourth day of November, 1893. He came from San Francisco on the same steamer with Rev. Dr. C. M. Hyde, the local representative or agent of the American Board of Missions. By this gentleman Mr. Willis was approached and informed, until he became imbued with Dr. Hyde's own prejudices against the native people of the Hawaiian Islands and against their queen. That clergyman's propensity to speak evil of