applied to W. O. Smith, attorney-general of Hawaii, for a position in the secret service of the Provisional Government, and obtained the position, entering on my duties January 18. In order to effect my purposes I professed to be a royalist, and having been born in a British province I was supposed by them to be a British subject. I stopped with a royalist named Archie Sinclair, a Scotchman by birth, who had previously been arrested, tried, and imprisoned for conspiracy against the Provisional Government. Through conversation with royalists I learned that the officers on board the British man-ofwar Champion, then lying in Honolulu harbor, were going to aid in the restoration of the queen.

The Champion sent their chief gunner, Marchant, ashore to act as a spy. I met him at the house of Archie Sinclair, and became acquainted with him. By means of a letter having the seal of Scotland Yard on it, I made him believe I was a Scotland Yard detective. Then he told me the plans of the Champion, which in brief were:

Captain Rooke of the Champion had arranged a conference between the representatives of the American and British governments, for the purpose of having both the American and British war-vessels leave Honolulu at once. The plan was, when the Champion and American vessel left the harbor, parted company and were out of sight of each other, the Champion was to return. Captain Rooke

was to make some excuse for returning. In a few days he was to give general shore liberty to his men, who were to go ashore in uniform of the British navy, then to go to different places agreed upon, and change to civilian's dress. Go out to another place agreed upon, near Sherwoods at Long Branch, to receive the arms which were to be landed there by the boats of the British man-of-war, through a narrow passage which runs into the abovenamed place. Then they were to take those arms and

lead the natives and other royalists, make an assault on the government building. When the trouble began, Captain Rooke, by order of the British minister, Wodehouse, was to land heavy guns and all the men available, for the pretended purpose of protecting British subjects. An excuse was to be made that the British subjects were being shot down by the Hawaiian Government, and take the place by conquest. But if the Royalists got the best of it without his aid, he was to do nothing. The queen was to be restored, and it was agreed that when she was restored, according to Hawaiian laws, she was to execute the officers of the Provisional Government, then abdicate in favor of Great Britain, and the British flag to be raised over the government building.

I went on board the British man-of-war Champion and met the two lieutenants of the vessel, who, believing me to be a Scotland Yard detective, entered fully into the scheme and confirmed all that Marchant had told me. Captain Rooke of the Champion told me he was doing all in his power to restore the queen, and so was Minister Wodehouse, the British minister, and he thought they would succeed.

Upon receiving this information I caused it to be transmitted to Admiral Walker, flagship Philadelphia, then lying in the harbor of Honolulu. That was all that I did

in the matter above referred to.

And I do hereby sol

emnly swear that the above and foregoing statement is true and correct, as stated above, so help me God!

A. D. McEvoy.

Subscribed and sworn to before me, this 4th day of January, 1896.

[Seal.]

WILLIAM J. FORBES,

Notary Public.

Unless there have been many false statements,

England wants the Sandwich Islands, and her officials have been interfering with the affairs of the local Government far more than Americans have been accused of doing.

Does the United States want the islands? is the question to be determined. No man can doubt that if President Harrison's term of office had lasted thirty days longer, the Hawaiian Islands would have been annexed; and there can be no doubt that Mr. Cleveland, his successor, was averse to annexation. In this great country of ours every man is permitted to have his own opinion as to the advisability of any public measure, tho as a rule his opinion is about all he does have. The evidence in these pages is spread before the people, and they are as capable of judging as any public official.

The annexation feeling is growing every day in the Hawaiian Islands. The people realize that they must inevitably belong either to America or to Great Britain, and the near proximity of the islands to the United States naturally makes union with that country preferable, especially as it constitutes their chief market.

The more intelligent natives are catching the annexation fever, for they feel that, as wards of so powerful a nation as the United States, they would be protected from foes without and within their own country. The royalists are losing all hope of the res

toration of the queen, and since the emphatic assertion of the Scotchman, Mr. Morrison, that there would be no monarchy, they have also lost all hope that the Princess Kaiulani will ever be crowned; consequently they are coming to favor annexation. They reason that it would give them a stronger government than they can ever hope to have if they remain a separate country.

Japan is ready to seize the islands on the slightest provocation, and the chief, in fact the only ultimate hope of the people is either Great Britain or America.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE POLICY OF ANNEXATION

TAKING San Francisco as a center, let a thread representing twenty-one hundred miles be swung on the map as in drawing a circle, and the line of circumference will touch Honolulu, the capital of the Hawaiian Islands on the southwest, the Alaska peninsula on the northwest, the Mississippi River on the east, the city of Houston, Texas, on the southwest, and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, on the south. These facts illustrate the proximity of the Hawaiian Islands, and prove that Chicago and the original thirteen States of the Union are farther from San Francisco than Honolulu. "One can sail fifteen hundred miles due west from Honolulu, three times the distance between Buffalo and Chicago, and by thence following a great circle sail due north and arrive at United States territory in Alaska." In all that distance there is no land, only a vast ocean teeming with commerce.

The Hawaiian Islands can no longer be called insignificant. The Pacific Ocean is destined some day in the near future to float the commerce of the world.