THE FIRST FRENCH TREATY.

243

exert the power of refusal to admit a subject of Great Britain,, we will grant a fair trial, and give satisfactory reasons for our act, of which due notice shall be given to the Consul of His Majesty the King of Great Britain.'

The other document contains the germ of the French treaty. Its brevity is admirable; but the doctrine of development as in our own times caused the small seed to assume the proportions of a tree with many branches. It runs thus:

Honolulu, Sandwich Isles, July 24, 1837. There shall be perpetual peace and amity between the French and the inhabitants of the Sandwich Isles.

The French shall go and come freely in all the states which compose the government of the Sandwich Isles.

They shall be received and protected there, and shall enjoy the same advantages which the subjects of the most favoured nations enjoy.

Subjects of the King of the Sandwich Isles shall equally come into France, and shall be received and protected there as the most favoured foreigners.

(Signed)

KAMEHAMEHA III.

A. DU PETIT THOUARS, Capt. Commander of the French frigate La Vénus.'

Ere he sailed, Captain Thouars appointed M. Dudoit to act provisionally as consul for France. The Hawaiian government made strong objections to receiving his nominee in this capacity; but the French commander was peremptory, and Venus had shown herself to be Mars in disguise; and so the appointment was settled.

CHAPTER XVI.

HISTORICAL SKETCH-THE FIRST FRENCH TRIBULATION.

HERE are certain places in a narrative where, al

hiatus, the historian seems entitled to stop for a couple of minutes to take breath and to knib his pen. These nodal points determine the length of his chapters. The chapter which we now commence is, unfortunately, like a new scene in a French play where the persons are 'les mêmes.'

'La Vénus' sailed away: her commander's destiny being to enter into complications at Tahiti,-islands lying forty degrees south of Hawaii. A few months after Captain Du Petit Thouars's departure, another priest, from Valparaiso, presented himself at the Sandwich Islands, but was not permitted to land.

The attention of France was now called to L'Océanie. The subject of propagating the Roman Catholic religion in those distant islands, round which imagination, acting upon slight actual information, knew so well how to throw her softly-coloured halo, seized the thoughts of the pious and amiable queen of Louis Philippe. To the King himself Du Petit Thouars had represented the advantages which would accrue to France from an

FRENCH PROPAGANDISM.

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occupation of the islands of the Pacific. The means for procuring the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to France lay in the introduction there of the Roman Catholic religion. An opportunity for an armed French vessel again appearing at Honolulu was soon found. Under Captain Belcher's guarantee that the English priest, Mr. Short, should withdraw as soon as possible, the latter gentleman sailed for Valparaiso. Scarcely had he left the island when the ship Europa' arrived there, having on board M. Maigret, Pro-vicar of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nicopolis, the head of the newly-formed see of Oceanica. H.B.M.'s frigate 'Imogen' had arrived there just previously. On Captain Bruce sailing from Valparaiso, he had been applied to by some priests to give them a passage to Oahu. he declined to do, and at the same time advised them not to attempt to force themselves upon that country. They disregarded his advice, however, and sought other means of finding their way to the islands. M. Dudoit, the French Consul pro tem., asked Captain Bruce to induce the native government to allow the priests, whom he knew to be on their way, to land; but the English commander refused to do so; and on the government asking his view of the articles arranged by Captain Du Petit Thouars, he clearly explained their weight and scope, and showed them that one nation cannot force upon another friendly nation either its religion, its laws, or its language.

This

The Europa,' with M. Maigret on board, was not allowed to come to anchor: and she was only permitted to enter the harbour on her owner giving bond in the sum of $10,000 not to permit the landing of the priest. The government remaining firm in their resolution, MM. Bachelot and Maigret purchased a schooner for

the use of their mission, and on the 23rd of November sailed from the islands, leaving Mr. Walsh the only priest in the Hawaiian kingdom. A few days after sailing M. Bachelot died. The pause of several months between this event and the arrival of Captain Laplace in the Artemise' may be properly filled up with some concurrent matters.

Since the transference of the vast dominions of the East India Company to the Imperial crown of Great Britain, the Hudson's Bay Company is left the greatest territorial proprietor extant. The possessions of the merchant adventurers trading in Hudson's Bay and Rupert's Land, sweep across the continent of America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They extend from corn-growing climates in the temperate zone to those boundless fields of arctic ice, where land is of a nominal value, and a fee-simple would remain invisible to itspurchaser for the greater part of each year, but which have the adventitious value of being the hunting-ground for the fox, the beaver, the otter, and the bear, as the great prairies lying towards the Rocky Mountains are for the bison or buffalo. The adventurers to Hudson's Bay are essentially a trading company. Their standing army consists of about twelve men; and their adopted motto Pro Pelle Cutem' might afford to a jocose Latinist several appropriate readings. Vancouver's Island was at that time one of their territories; and as early as 1834, the company, still advancing towards the setting sun, placed a trading agent in the Sandwich Islands; not with a view of obtaining furs, there being no fera there, but for the purpose of selling English manufactures. From the islands they took salt, and to them imported salmon; they also took some of the natives, transporting them from their sunny climate to

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the cold northern settlements of the Company. Some of the emigrants lived and became useful servants, but the greater number of them died in their new and inhospitable home. The Company continued their agency there, operating with more or less success till about seven years ago, when they withdrew from the field, concentrating their commercial establishments in British Columbia. In the year 1841, Sir George Simpson, the territorial governor of the Company, accompanied by his secretary Mr. Edward M. Hopkins, left London, and passing over the American continent, crossed the Rocky Mountains, entered California before the gold discoveries had made that name so familiar to European ears, and taking ship at Santa Barbara, proceeded to the Sandwich Islands. Sir George was able to render some important services to the Hawaiian government in pecuniary and other ways. Several chapters of his agreeable volumes, An Overland Journey round the World,' are occupied with an account of this visit, and with observations made there. Sir George on leaving the islands made his way by the north-west settlements of Russia through Siberia and Russia to Europe; and having made a complete circuit of the globe, reached London almost on the same day that his secretary arrived there by a homeward journey over the Rocky Mountains, and the lakes and prairies of North America.

We must now return to the American missionaries. The Rev. W. Richards, who formed one of their number, was a very kindly, well-meaning, pious, industrious person, without any great intellectual power, who, during his twelve years' residence in the islands as a religious teacher, had acquired the native language very correctly, and was principally employed by the mission in translating. He was selected to go to the United States on