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Voyage Round the World.

4I

and four of her lientenants were killed, two on her own decks, and two in the Intrepid; but, on the whole, her entire career had been that of what is usually called 'a lucky ship.' Her fortune, however, may perhaps be explained by the simple fact that she had always been well commanded. In her last two cruises she had probably possessed as fine a crew as ever manned a frigate. They were principally New England men: and it has been said of them that they were almost qualified to fight the ship without her officers."* The John Adams had no such brilliant record as the "old Ironsides," but had been nevertheless a serviceable and fortunate ship; and the name of this vessel serves to connect the different epochs of our naval history, and to bring down the past into the present, as Admiral Foote himself unites the old and the new, and forms a connecting link between the ancient and modern periods of the American Navy. He belongs to both periods, although his most famous actions lie in the circle of very recent events. The voyage of the John Adams, in which we are now particularly interested, was really one of the circumnavigation of the globe. They sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to Bombay, Canton, Manilla, the Sandwich and Society Islands, the coast of Chili, and doubled Cape Horn; during which cruise the ship was engaged in an attack on the pirates of Sumatra, and especially in an assault upon the Asiatic towns of Quallahbattoo and Arbucloo, burning the latter, the inhabitants of which had treacherously murdered the captain of an American pepper-ship. But the chief interest of this cruise is concentrated in the visit to the Sandwich Islands, on which occasion Lieutenant Foote, now thirty-two years old and a man of matured character, displayed a prompt energy and a loyalty to cherished principles of duty.

Many English ships had in previous years exerted a most

* Cooper's Naval History, vol. ii., p. 378.

deleterious influence upon the natives of the islands by introducing intemperance and other vices; but in July, 1839, Captain Laplace, of the French frigate L'Artemise, arrived at Honolulu. He came in the interest of the Romish mission, representing the queen of Louis Philippe as a patron of the missions of her Church, and saying that he had come by order of the French government to put an end to the ill-treatment the French had suffered at the islands. He demanded that the Roman Catholic faith should be granted all the privileges that the Protestant faith enjoyed; that the King of the Sandwich Islands should make a special treaty with France, and should deposit in the hands of the captain of L'Artemise twenty thousand dollars as a guarantee of his future conduct; and that if these and other equally peremptory conditions were not complied with, Captain Laplace declared his intention to make immediate war upon the islands. He sent letters to the English and American consuls, informing them of his intention to commence hostilities in case his terms were not agreed to, and offered an asylum to the citizens of the two nations if war should arise; but in the letter to the American consul was this singular language: "I do not include in this. class the individuals who, although born, it is said, in the United States, make a part of the Protestant clergy of this archipelago, direct the counsels of the king, influence his conduct, and are the true authors of the insults given by him to France. For me they compose a part of the native population, and must undergo the unhappy consequences of a war which they shall have brought on this country." He referred, of course, to the American missionaries, who, for the reasons alleged, were not to be recognized and treated as American citizens.*

The upshot of all this was that the king was forced to com

* Dr. Anderson's History of the Sandwich Islands Mission, p. 159.

Affair of the Sandwich Islands Mission. 43

ply with the conditions above mentioned, and to sign a treaty, one of whose articles was that French wines and brandies should not be prohibited, and should pay a duty of only five per cent. on their value. The French frigate sailed away on the 20th of July; and the French consul, taking advantage of the treaty, used his efforts so successfully to introduce wine, brandy, and tobacco, that the port was flooded with these articles, and the morals of the native population were greatly depraved. A violent Romanist party was raised up, and the Protestant missionaries, who had not injuriously influenced the government in their special measures against the Roman. Catholics, were nevertheless defamed, and in many ways greatly annoyed and harassed. In the following October the United States East India squadron arrived at Honolulu; and the rest of the story will be told nearly in the words of Lieutenant Foote, who wrote out a statement of his own share in this transaction.

On the arrival of the squadron, the officers heard of the influence which the late visit of the French frigate L'Artemise had exerted upon the government, the mission, and foreign residents. Their first impressions were unfavorable to the missionaries; and the reports in circulation were of such a character as to induce many of them scarcely to question the propriety of the proceedings of the French commander. was said that the missionaries had an agency in framing many of the penal laws of the government, in urging persecution even to torture against Roman Catholics, and, in fact, all the mistakes and evils in the political and social condition of the islands were ascribed to them.

It

At the expiration of the first week, Lieutenants Turner and Foote were in possession of facts which left no doubt of the innocence of the missionaries in regard to the motives, and, with but few exceptions, the judiciousness of their acts. With this view of the case, Lieutenant Foote met the members

of the mission, and urged upon them the necessity of applying at once to Commodore Read to order a court of inquiry, composed of the officers of the squadron, with power to summon witnesses, enter the proceedings on record, and pronounce an opinion, or at least to put on record all the facts bearing upon the case. The suggestion was immediately adopted: a letter was drawn up and laid before the commodore, urging an investigation. Several days having elapsed without an answer, Foote again met the mission, urging them to reiterate their request. This was done, and on the 30th the commodore replied to the communications from the mission, declining to act. This put a new aspect on the question. Lieutenants Turner and Foote at once formed a plan to give currency to the correspondence and action thus far secured, feeling that in the lack of an investigation it was important to do something to place the real merits of this question before the public. It was determined to make an effort to induce the officers generally to subscribe their names to a letter prefixed to Mr. Castle's article, and to the correspondence with the commodore, the king, the consul, and the mission. A letter was drawn up and was signed unanimously by the wardroom officers of the John Adams, and, as no others were asked, it was then sent to the Columbia, where it received the signatures of the officers, with two or three exceptions.

This is a copy of the letter:

"We, the undersigned officers of the United States East India squadron, having upon our arrival at this place heard various rumors in relation and derogatory to the American mission at these islands, feel it to be due not only to the missionaries themselves, but to the cause of truth and justice, that the most unqualified testimony should be given in the case, and do therefore order one thousand copies of the annexed article and correspondence to be printed for gratuitous distribution, as the most effectual method of settling this agitated question in the minds of an intelligent and liberal public.

"Being most decidedly of the opinion that the persons composing the

Letter of the American Officers.

45

Protestant mission of these islands are American citizens, and as such entitled to that protection which our government has never withheld, and with unwavering confidence in the justice which has ever characterwe rest assured that any insult offered to this unoffending class

ized

it,

will be promptly redressed. It

the operation

of this, as

well

is readily admitted that there may be in

as in other systems in which fallible man

has an agency, some objectionable peculiarities; still as a system it is deemed comparatively unexceptionable, and believed to have been pursued with the professed principles of the society which it represents; and it would seem that the salutary influence exerted by the mission on the it to the confidence and kind feel

native population ought

to commend

ings of all interested in the dissemination

"GEORGE

ANDREW

of good principles.

A. MAGRUDER, Lieutenant.

H. FOOTE, Lieutenant.

JOHN W. TURK, Lieutenant.

THOMAS TURNER, Lieutenant.

JAMES S. PALMER, Lieutenant.

EDWARD

R. THOMSON, Lieutenant.

1

AUGUSTUS

GEORGE

H.

KILTY, Lieutenant.

B. MINOR, Lieutenant.

JOHN HAZLETT, Surgeon of the Fleet.

JOHN

A. LOCKWOOD, Surgeon.
DANGERFIELD FONTLEROY, Purser.

ROBERT

B. PEGRAM, Master.

FITCH W. TAYLOR, Chaplain.

JOSEPH BEALE, Assistant Surgeon.

J. H. BELCHER, Professor of Mathematics.
A. G. PENDLETON, Professor of Mathematics."

The "article" referred to in the letter, to be printed with

the correspondence, was an able article written by Mr. Castle, a leading member of the mission, and published in the Hawaiian Spectator, which contained the evidence upon which the unqualified expressions of the letter were based. It furnished many facts in reference to the history of the American mission in the Sandwich Islands, and especially in regard to the relations of the mission with the Roman Catholics, proving that the missionaries had opposed all means of con

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