Part 9

I should be wanting to myself did I not express the gratification I feel at seeing here present some of those who were the first to labor in the vineyard. Although they look for their reward elsewhere, they will not reject my passing tribute of respect. Their labor has been long and their anxiety great, but their constancy and patience have equaled the emergency. The result of their life's work may even disappoint them if they judge it by the anticipation of their more sanguine years. Yet, in their decline of life, they see some of the fruits they prayed for, and they will not complain when they remember that the measure of their success is from above.

Allow me to thank you for your personal share in the presentation, and through you to express my kindest acknowledgments to the American Bible Society.

DECEMBER 10, 1857.

BY ORDER OF THE KING.

It is hereby proclaimed that Thursday, the 31st of December ensuing, be kept as a day of solemn fasting and humiliation for sin, and of thanksgiving to Almighty God for numberless unmerited mercies and blessings received during the year that expires on that day.

L. KAMEHAMEHA.

JANUARY 21, 1858.

His Majesty's Reply to the Address of Capt. Davis, of the U. S. Sloop =St. Marys=, upon the eve of her Departure for San Francisco.

I can heartily assure you, Captain Davis, that it would have been a source of unfeigned regret to me, had circumstances prevented my having this last interview with you before your departure from these waters. When I say last, I mean the last during the visit of the St. Marys, for I sincerely hope to see you here again, and when you do return, I hope you will bring with you the same officers whose sojourn here with you has contributed so much to the social enjoyment of the last few months.

Your desire to increase the good understanding existing between my Government and your own has been so conspicuous that I cannot but congratulate the latter upon the happy circumstances that in sending a ship here, for the preservation of safety and order, the command of that vessel devolved upon no other than you. That you have been successful in your object, must be a matter of pride to you, and I do not think you will hear with indifference from my lips the simple announcement, that I and every member of my Government have appreciated those exertions, but no one more so than I, whose opportunities of judging of your intentions have, I am happy to say, been more numerous than those of some others.

MAY 21, 1858.

Replies by His Majesty to the Congratulatory Addresses on the Birth of a Son and Heir to His Throne, by A. P. Everett, Esq., for himself and other Foreign Consuls; by H. R. H. Prince General Kamehameha; by the Rev. Mr. Damon and other Clergymen; and by the U. S. Consul, A. Pratt, Esq., for Foreign Residents generally.

His Majesty replied as follows:

GENTLEMEN:--I very kindly thank you for the congratulations you have just offered to the Queen and myself, and for the kind wishes you have expressed for the prosperity and happiness of the infant Prince. I also thank you for the many expressions of sympathy and good will which you have employed towards my people and Government, and for the prosperity of both. I assure you that the prosperity and happiness of my country, and of all who live within my rule, are subjects dear to my heart. And there is no greater encouragement afforded me that the hopes so often expressed by the friends of the Hawaiian people will be fulfilled, than the knowledge that I have the support and sympathy of the great and powerful nations whose officers I rejoice to see before me on this, to me, particularly happy day.

PRINCE AND SOLDIERS:--The expressions of loyalty you have just uttered are very welcome to me. There is no tie between the head of a government and his troops like that of mutual good wishes and a common object. Such exists between us, and may it never cease to exist. So long as it does we have nothing to fear of one another, but every thing to hope. In the Queen's name and that of our infant son I thank you kindly for your generous wishes.

Turning to Mr. Damon and the other reverend gentlemen present His Majesty observed:

GENTLEMEN:--For your valuable present allow me to thank you in the name of my son, whose advent into this life has been greeted so kindly, so heartily, by the community at large, but by none more sincerely, or with more ardent wishes for his real happiness than by yourselves--of that I am sure. The birth of the young Prince has placed me in a relationship to which I have hitherto been a stranger, and it has imposed upon me new responsibilities. I trust that in my conduct towards him throughout my life, I may remember the particular offering which your affection deemed most proper, and that as this Bible is one of my boy's first possessions, so its contents may be the longest remembered. In the Queen's name and my own I thank you, and it shall be the task of both of us to teach our first-born child to kindly regard you.

Then addressing himself more particularly to Mr. Consul Pratt, and from him to the assembly in general, His Majesty added:

GENTLEMEN AND FRIENDS:--I receive your congratulations on this occasion with mixed feelings of pleasure and pride. I take pleasure in knowing that the event which has given so much happiness in my own domestic circle, has caused a pleasure in this whole community and brought to my house these unmistakable marks of sympathy and good will; and I cannot but feel pride, at such a time as this, in knowing that my first-born child, the destined heir to the position I now occupy, enters the world amidst your hearty acclamations. I thank you for those expressions towards the Queen and myself, which are reiterations of feelings often expressed, and more often manifested than expressed, but which come doubly welcome at a time when every parent's heart has a yearning for sympathy. Gentlemen, you see me a proud father, and by these manifestations of your love for me and mine you make me a proud King. Such occasions as these make a throne worthy of any man's envy, whilst the feelings uppermost in my heart will establish and seal from this time forth a new tie between me and every man who, like myself, can say he has a child.

MAY 22, 1858.

Reply by His Majesty to the Address presented to Him by the Lodge of Free Masons and the Royal Arch Chapter of Honolulu.

MOST EXCELLENT HIGH PRIEST, COMPANIONS AND BRETHREN:

Bound together as we are in a holy league of brotherhood, I should not be doing justice to the feelings which actuate me in my relationship with yourselves, and operate amongst us all, did I deny that I almost expected you would seek a special occasion to felicitate me in the character in which we now appear. For all your kind wishes I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and among the many blessings for which I have, at this time, especial reason to be thankful to our Supreme Grand Master, I do not reckon this the least, that I enjoy the sympathy of a Fraternity whose objects are so pure, and whose friendships so true as those of our Order. I will not multiply words, but believe me, that when I look upon my infant son, whose birth has been the cause of so much joy to me, and of so much interest to yourselves, the thought already crosses my mind that perhaps one day he may wear these dearly prized badges, and that his intercourse with his fellow men, like his father's, may be rendered more pleasant, and, perhaps, more profitable, by his espousing those solemn tenets which make the name of a Freemason honorable throughout the world.

MAY 25, 1858.

Replies by His Majesty to the Hon. D. L. Gregg, Commissioner of the United States, and to the Hon. James W. Borden, his Successor, upon his Presentation as the new Commissioner.

His Majesty, turning to Mr. Gregg, replied:

From the renewed assurances of sympathy and good will towards this Kingdom which, on the part of the President of the United States of America, you have just expressed, I cannot but derive the liveliest gratification, reminding me as they do of the long course of years during which the successive Heads of your Government have offered, through their Representatives here, similar professions of amity, without one interruption having occurred to mar the retrospect. I should be sorry were the President, or you, to suppose for one instant that I regard these professions merely as a civil form of words called for by the occasion.

The Government of the United States has never flattered me or my Predecessors with expectations of more than it intended to perform; the action has always followed true to the word, and we know by experience the value of such assurances as those to which I have just listened with so much satisfaction.