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Affair of the Sandwich Islands Mission.

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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.

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Being most decidedly of the opinion that the persons composing the

Letter of the American Officers.

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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 characterized it, we rest assured that any insult offered to this unoffending class will be promptly redressed. It is readily admitted that there may be in the operation of this, as well 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 native population ought to commend it to the confidence and kind feelings of all interested in the dissemination of good principles.

“GEORGE A. MAGRUDER, Lieutenant.

ANDREW H. FOOTE, Lieutenant.

JOHN W. TURK, Lieutenant.

THOMAS TURNER, Lieutenant.

JAMES S. PALMER, Lieutenant.
EDWARD R. THOMSON, Lieutenant.

AUGUSTUS H. KILTY, Lieutenant.
GEORGE 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

tending against the Roman Catholics other than those of reason and truth. The rigid ecclesiastical discipline, the uncompromising opposition to intoxicating liquors, the exposing of the vice and evils of licentiousness, and the marked preference given to the Protestant faith, were really the head and front of the missionaries' offending. The mission had no doubt represented the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church to be hostile to the religious and political welfare of a nation, and, whether this were true or untrue, the missionaries were justified in a free expression of opinion on the subject.

Fifty copies of these papers were privately struck off; but it appeared that an imprudent gentleman had walked into the office and taken away one of the copies, and it was soon noised abroad that the officers of the United States squadron had published a severe and abusive letter in the interest of the mission against the French government. The excitement at Honolulu was very great. The French consul applied to the commodore for a copy of the offensive letter, that he might forward it to his government.

On Lieutenant Foote's meeting with the commodore, the latter refused to read the letter or to sanction its publication. He was, however, finally convinced by the firm arguments of Foote that he had misconstrued entirely the character of the letter; that it contained no offensive assault upon the French government, but that it was a calm statement of opinion absolutely required by the circumstances. In a conversation which followed with the French consul himself, he was led to admit frankly that the letter was unobjectionable in substance and tone. The English consul concurred in this; and a paper was drawn up and signed to that effect.

By these conversations and explanations the excitement was allayed, and at the same time the desired immediate publicity was given to the dignified statement of the American officers in support of the mission, and all ground of renewing the op

Prompt Action of Lieutenant Foote.

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position to the mission in future was taken away. Real seryice was done to the mission, and at the same time no offense was given to the French government, while its agents received a salutary check.

Lieutenant Foote's spirited conduct received the formal as well as hearty thanks of the missionaries. It was all that he, a subordinate officer in the squadron, could do; but it was done-promptly, thoroughly, and at the personal risk of official disgrace, and perhaps of summary dismissal from the Navy. It may by some be thought to have been an irregular proceeding and an unjustifiable interference, but the risk was foreseen and deliberately assumed. It was the act of a man who placed duty before every thing else. The action which was taken maintained the important principle, now so well recognized, that American missionaries are American citizens, and that wherever they are, they are under the full and complete protection of their country's flag.

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