Mr. Daggett to Mr. Bayard .
Honolulu , April 27, 1885. (Received May 15.)
Sir: It is my painful duty to announce that Her Majesty, Queen Dowager Emma Kaleleonalani, died in this city, of apoplexy, on the 25th instant. She was born in 1836, and was the widow of Kamehameha IV. She leaves a considerable landed estate, but no immediate heirs. In blood she was one-fourth white, her grandfather having been John Young, an English sailor of capacity in the service of Kamehameha I. Without a distinguished chiefly strain, personal attraction commended her to Kamehameha IV, and she became the wife of that sovereign in 1856. On the death of King Lunalilo, in 1874, she was an applicant for the succession, but, received but six of the forty-five votes of the Legislative Assembly convened to name a successor, thirty-nine having been cast for David Kalakaua, the present King. Since that time she has had a very considerable following, and has not been without influence in the Kingdom.
With the death, a few months since, of Mrs. Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the Kamehameha family, so far as recognized, became extinct, and the decease of Queen Emma leaves no one to contest on the score of lineage, the sovereign right of the existing dynasty, which stands alone at last, as the sole representative, unless very remotely, of the Hawaiian rulers of the past.
After the customary lengthy period of mourning, the remains of the deceased Queen will be deposited in the royal mausoleum, near Honolulu.
Very respectfully, &c.,