King Kalaniopuu, in the mean time, had died, and the young Kamehameha I., his nephew, had possessed himself of the island. With him commenced a new dynasty, the introduction of some kind of civilisation, and the foundation of order in society. Endowed with an iron will, and inspired by an ardent desire to improve his people, he subdued all the islands, compelled the chiefs to acknowledge his power, and applied himself diligently to study what could be done for the advantage of his country. In 1789, two American ships came to the island. A person called Young, who landed from one of the ships, was detained by the king; the crew of the other ship dispersed themselves among the natives, and were eventually all murdered, with the exception of one man, named Davis. These two men, Young and Davis, remained with Kamehameha, who made friends and counsellors of them. They taught him the customs of their own country, and their practical knowledge was afterwards very useful to him in developing the mercantile resources of the islands.

In the year 1792 arrived Vancouver. His visit was a godsend to the king, whose zeal in the cause of reform he directed into proper channels Vancouver brought with him the first horses and horned cattle ever seen in the islands, and it is wonderful how these animals have multiplied. The fields are covered with cattle-and horses are now so common that not a Kanak is too poor to own one. Kotzebue visited these islands in 1816, and has given a true account of Kamehameha's undeniable great

ness.

After having conquered all his enemies, made good laws for his subjects, established some social order among them, and awakened a desire for the improvements introduced by the whites, Kamehameha, the father and regenerator of his country, died in 1819.

Kamehameha had two lawful wives. The first was of high birth, and the mother of three children; she was his state wife; she was treated with the utmost respect, and his visits to her were conducted with regal pomp. The other was his favourite wife, although she had another hus band. She is said to have been a clever and handsome woman. The king had, besides, three secondary wives, one of whom had two daughters, both married to their half-brother, Liholiho, who again was the lover of his stepmother. That such vice was tolerated, shows how low was the standard of morality even among the highest and most cultivated of the islanders.

Liholiho adopted his father's mode of government, and under him commenced a struggle between the Pagan worship and the Christian faith, which ended, for a time, in the overthrow of both, so that the natives were left without any semblance of religion at all. At length some young Sandwich Islanders repaired to North America for education, and through their agency the first missionaries were sent to the island in the year 1820. These men did a great deal of good, but the king was afraid that the English would be offended at his admission of North Americans, which they might construe into a preference for the United States, and he wrote a letter to King William, placing the Sandwich Islands under the protection of Great Britain. In 1823 he and Kamamala made a voyage to London, attended by some of the principal islanders. They were well received by the aristocracy; but both died soon after of the measles. The frigate Blonde conveyed their remains back to their native islands.

The advent to the throne of the present king, Kamehameha III., was speedily followed by religious warfare among the professors of dif ferent creeds, and the different sects who wished to make proselytes on the island; and some of the greatest maritime powers of Europe sought at the same time to frighten by their cannon this small, weak, and halfsavage nation into measures which might serve their various interests. The struggles for supremacy between the Roman Catholic priests and the Protestant missionaries who had congregated there, were, to say the least of them, unchristian, and also impolitic, among a people who were just emerging from heathenism and entering on the career of civilisation, and had well-nigh replunged them into paganism and barbarism. However, the Protestant clergy triumphed, for every post under the government was soon occupied by them, and they took almost the whole administration of affairs into their own hands. The French, who had endeavoured to gain a permanent footing in the Sandwich Islands, found themselves obliged to relinquish the scheme; and they indemnified themselves by their success at Otaheite, or Tahiti. The English subsequently made some demonstration against the king; but at length these dramas ended, and since then the native ruler has lived in peace with the European powers, and has been steadily carrying out his plans of constitutional and national reform.

Thus, in the course of thirty years, has a state arisen under our eyes, as it were. Thirty years ago, heathen darkness obscured all truth and knowledge, and fettered every resource; idols were worshipped, human sacrifices were offered up to them, and despotism paralysed every one. By the civilised world the Sandwich Islands were looked upon merely as some bare rocks, whose dangerous bays brought death to the shipwrecked mariner-the fire from the volcano of Mauna Loas alone indicating the situation of these inhospitable islands. Now, there exists there a wellregulated state, where freedom and the rights of mankind are recognised. It has been often asserted, that notwithstanding the much boasted civilisation of the inhabitants, these islands have but changed masters; that the natives have become slaves of foreign intruders; that the ancient barbarism is not extinct; and that religion is merely on the lips. But there is no truth in these assertions; and the missionaries have not laboured in vain. That the projected improvements have not yet been fully carried out, should not surprise those who recollect how slow is the progress of reform in their own superior native lands. There is now scarcely an individual in these islands who cannot read, write, and count; what rapid strides has not agriculture made. The islands produce a quantity of sugar of excellent quality, coffee that can bear comparison with that of Mocha, tobacco as good as that which grows in the West Indies, rice, maize, and various fruits. And when it is remembered how short a time has elapsed since these islands lay almost uncultivated, it may be asked, what may they not become situated as they are half-way between New Holland, China, and America-when foreign capital and foreign speculation shall have deve loped those resources which the indolence of the natives have hitherto left unemployed?

THE ADMINISTRATION AND OPPOSITION.

BY CYRUS REDDING.

MARKED by the usual premonitory symptoms on the part of the satisfied and dissatisfied divisions of the public, or, as some call them, of the "masses," the season of parliamentary action recommenced. The party writers out of place treated the world, for some time antecedently to the royal speech, with luminous expositions of the sins of omission and commission by the minister and his friends; and the same kind of censures were echoed from the other side of the Channel, though from different motives. Here the motive cause was the desire of place; on the other side of the Channel, jealousy of England, and a hatred of free institutions. The attacks of the Conservative party at home were supposed to be moderated by the apprehension that they might be led into a track tending to their disadvantage, should a freak of fortune "pitchfork" them into office again. They appeared not to have forgotten their indiscretion in handing over Peel to all the malignities of party rage for supporting free trade, and the ill-effect of following the example they denounced before their anathemas had cooled. They foolishly dreamed that they should thus succeed in clinching the rotten nail they had driven to fix themselves in place. They had no qualms of conscience upon their shameless tergiversation. It was an unlucky affair for them, too, that they blundered about the short-sightedness of the people. The wisdom acquired from this morsel of experience made them careful. Until the session opened, they confined their hostility to the discreet choice and use of common-place. Mr. Disraeli's old clothes-bag, emptied and replenished over and over to support his latest change, and the demand for antique fashions in trade and creed, however ragged and timeworn, came to be accompanied with a cry so subdued, that the honourable gentleman's portion of his party had to sustain the rebuke of Major Beresford, the unflinching denizen of the anti-ministerial Monmouth-street, for laxity in his calling. The contracted monosyllable came too faintly upon the ear of that chieftain, before whom even the illustrious Earl of Derby trembled as the rebellious lieutenant played the cat in the dove-house. The living head of the Stanleys must have more than once wished, from his talk, that the contumacious major had been troubled with a sore throat, sooner than have thrown division into a party once so united in inconsistency. The reconcilement which has since crusted over the difference is, we suspect, only chagrin baptised with the name of friendship. Even where the desire of mischief may be common, real cordiality may not always exist. The contumacy of which we speak was a folly without a temptation; as frail an affair as the major's old disciple of that name was as a With these considerations we do not anticipate a hundredth part of the injury to the ministry from the Opposition that its intentions warrant. There must be something of the popular element in the shaft that is to prostrate an administration in England. The two Conservative factions glued together anew and varnished up, after celebrating their re-alliance, before parliament met, over turtle, until it might be imagined

man.

they had been transmigrated into a cooing flock of the feathered tribe of the same name, hob-nobbed each other, and no doubt crowned the glass with the sentiment of "Speedy place and soon," as old Sir William Curtis would have phrased it. Nor is this all. The people of England are become as of one mind in regard to the political stolidity of the Opposition party-a stolidity not alone a fault, but a crime where pretension to something better once obtained confidence.

:

Dismissing the "regular" Opposition, so called to distinguish it from that wavering line of policy which gives or withholds support by fits and starts to obtain a reputation for disinterestedness, we come to the popular feeling how were matters as to that? There were the customary premonitory symptoms, but not a united opposition to any important measures, except to the income-tax. As usual, before the recess closed, there were certain anti-ministerial exhibitions among those who really believe every grievance can be redressed by a government, and those who, neither believing nor caring about it, must say something to make themselves notorious among their kind. In the first of these categories must be placed a numerous body of builders' workmen out of employ, partly in consequence of the season, and partly generated by the enormous overbuilding continually going forward, as if the metropolis is to extend itself for ever. This, of course, is laid at the door of the government in place of the inclement season, and the continual outlay of capital in buildingspeculations. Then meetings were got up to consider the position of the poor needlewomen-badly enough off, Heaven knows! Of this evil, "bad government" is declared the cause, since, were it not for being illgoverned, England would become a scene of perfect happiness, from John O'Groats to Cape Cornwall. Then some demagogue declares that it is treason towards the people to deny the six points of the charter, and thus keep the nation in its present misery, as no good will accrue until the poorer classes legislate for the rest. Here an orator, who makes a trade of his addresses wherever he can ferret out a discontent, calls for universal suffrage; and there some pardoned felon mounts the rostrum to declare how shamefully the government behaves towards disinterested lovers of their country like himself. Provisions carry a high price-this is the government again, which prevents our sharing as usual in the trivial luxury of apple-dumplings-no matter that the Devon and Hereford orchards failed last year. Ministers combine with the landed interest to keep up the present high prices of provisions-this, while the ports are open, and the duties are no longer existent. If there be monopoly in Mark-lane, or middlemen stand between the slopseller and shirt-making woman-if the carcase monopolist interpose between the grazier and butcher, it is the fault of the authorities-why does not parliament make laws to set all this right? Is not this a proof of bad government? "Let us get into parliament," cries the Chartist, "we will set all right; put down political economy, and prevent there being a beggar in the land."

Now all these complainings are the result of an ignorance which it is the custom to flatter, and of the use of the word "people" without defining the term. This increase of complaints is always observable just before parliament assembles. No well-informed persons of any political colour support them until they take an aspect of truthfulness. Abettors echo such complaints, false or true, make a profit by them, and run mis

taken persons deeper into error as to their foundation. The session once commenced, the mistaken ascriptions die off, or become absorbed in topics resting on a better foundation, or originating in parliament itself. For many of the evils of which complaint is thus made, our rapid increase in numbers is the cause, combined with our insular position, which prevents the exit of a superfluous population, without the condition of possessing sufficient wealth to transport themselves to vacant lands. Could the labourer put his foot at once from England upon the shores of Canada or Australia, we should hear less of the sufferings of the poorer classes. We want elbow-room for our population; but this is a different question from that before us, too voluminous for further comment.

The House met at the period fixed, and the union of the Opposition so lately divided was tested. In the House of Lords, the Earl of Derby spoke with that reckless eloquence which for many years he has exhibited; at one time in support, at another in opposition to almost every sentiment and every political party; to-day a Whig, to-morrow a Tory, or one knows not what a singular example of political incon sistency. It might be supposed that, from his lordship's small reputation in the public view as a politician, he would be more careful in husbanding it. To do all the mischief possible in damaging an opponent may be a principle in a time like our own, when Christianity is so much improved; but it argues a forgetfulness inexcusable not to recollect that mischief is too precious a thing to throw away. His lordship's censures were confined to declamatory assertions, and to giving advice to his brother peers to demand a pledge for the repeal of the income-tax in 1860; a point not at all relevant to the debate before the House. The royal speech was declared " meagre;" as if royal speeches were intended to be much otherwise. 66 "Pity 'tis, 'tis so;" but it is a separate question about changing such speeches into manifestoes or statements de omnibus rebus. His lordship alluded to the King of Siam as one monarch with whom we were at peace, as if he were the only sovereign amiable towards us. He declared we were to blame for the part we had acted in the cases of Neufchâtel and Naples, in regard to Italian liberty, and the bombardment of Canton; in fact, for everything. Our foreign affairs were all sources of misgiving to his lordship. It is unfortunate that some statesmen proceed to such lengths in their assaults of an oppo nent, that, like certain historians, they will deliberately deviate from the correct line to satisfy their antipathies, and to serve their own purposes even justify Satan's first rebellion. The royal speech has, from long custom, become little more than a form, of which it is competent, we imagine, for any peer to propose an alteration into a document long enough to fill a blue-book. To lay open the prospective objects of the cabinet would be exceedingly inconvenient to any administration, if it were only for the premature questionings which it would occasion from members at all times and seasons. Lord Derby must have known this; and if his lordship did not all the world did, and that if he himself were in Rome he would do as Rome does. Of what value, then, were his lordship's arguments? Could they hold water even before the senators of Gotham? The effort of Earl Grey, by moving an amendment, did not help the Opposition, the non-contents in number being nearly thrice the

contents.