 by remitting for a time the accustomed severity of the laws. Royal
proclamations in English and Hawaiian were placarded in the streets of Honolulu,
and posted up in the more populous villages of the group, in which his majesty
announced to his loving subjects the re-establishment of his throne, and called
upon them to celebrate it by breaking through all moral, legal, and religious
restraint for ten consecutive days, during which time all the laws of the land
were solemnly declared to be suspended.
    Who that happened to be at Honolulu during those ten memorable days will
ever forget them! The spectacle of universal broad-day debauchery, which was
then exhibited, beggars description. The natives of the surrounding islands
flocked to Honolulu by hundreds, and the crews of two frigates, opportunely let
loose like so many demons to swell the heathenish uproar, gave the crowning
flourish to the scene. It was a sort of Polynesian saturnalia. Deeds too
atrocious to be mentioned were done at noon-day in the open street, and some of
the islanders, caught in the very act of stealing from the foreigners, were, on
being taken to the fort by the aggrieved party, suffered immediately to go at
large and to retain the stolen property - Kekuanoa informing the white men, with
a sardonic grin, that the laws were hannapa (tied up).
    The history of these ten days reveals in their true colours the character of
the Sandwich islanders, and furnishes an eloquent commentary on the results
which have flowed from the labours of the missionaries. Freed from the
restraints of severe penal laws, the natives almost to a man had plunged
voluntarily into every species of wickedness and excess, and by their utter
disregard of all decency plainly showed that, although they had been schooled
into a seeming submission to the new order of things, they were in reality as
depraved and vicious as ever.
    Such were the events which produced in America so general an outbreak of
indignation against the spirited and high-minded Paulet. He is not the first man
who, in the fearless discharge of his duty, has awakened the senseless clamours
of those whose narrow-minded suspicions blind them to a proper appreciation of
measures which unusual exigencies may have rendered necessary.
    It is almost needless to add that the British cabinet never had any idea of
appropriating the islands; and it furnishes a sufficient vindication of the acts
of Lord George Paulet, that he not only received the unqualified approbation of
his own government, but that to this hour the great body of the Hawaiian people
invoke blessings on his head, and look back with gratitude to the time when his
liberal
