ccess to His Majesty, and Paulet was coolly referred to Dr.
Judd, and informed that the apothecary was invested with plenary powers to
treat with him. Rejecting this insolent proposition, his lordship again
addressed the king by letter, and renewed his previous request; but he
encountered another repulse. Justly indignant at this treatment, he penned
a third epistle, enumerating the grievances to be redressed, and demanding
a compliance with his requisitions, under penalty of immediate
hostilities.

The government was now obliged to act, and an artful stroke of policy was
decided upon by the despicable councillors of the king to entrap the
sympathies and rouse the indignation of Christendom. His Majesty was made
to intimate to the British captain that he could not, as the conscientious
ruler of his beloved people, comply with the arbitrary demands of his
lordship, and in deprecation of the horrors of war, tendered to his
acceptance the _provisional cession_ of the islands, subject to the result
of the negotiations then pending in London. Paulet, a bluff and
straight-forward sailor, took the king at his word, and after some
preliminary arrangements, entered upon the administration of Hawaiian
affairs, in the same firm and benignant spirit which marked the discipline
of his frigate, and which had rendered him the idol of his ship's company.
He soon endeared himself to nearly all orders of the islanders; but the
king and the chiefs, whose feudal sway over the common people was
laboriously sought to be perpetuated by their missionary advisers,
regarded all his proceedings with the most vigilant animosity. Jealous of
his growing popularity, and unable to counteract it, they endeavoured to
assail his reputation abroad by ostentatiously protesting against his
acts, and appealing in Oriental phrase to the _wide universe_ to witness
and compassionate their _unparalleled wrongs_.

Heedless of their idle clamours, Lord George Paulet addressed himself to
the task of reconciling the differences among the foreign residents,
remedying their grievances, promoting their mercantile interests, and
ameliorating, as far as lay in his power, the condition of the degraded
natives. The iniquities he brought to light and instantly suppressed are
too numerous to be here recorded; but one instance may be mentioned that
will give some idea of the lamentable misrule to which these poor
islanders are subjected.

It is well known that the laws at t