No. 547.
Memorandum handed to Mr. Bayard by Sir L. S.
Sackville West.
England and France by the convention of November 28, 1843, are bound to consider the Sandwich Islands as an independent state and never to take possession, either directly or under the title of a protectorate or any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed.
The best way to secure this object would, in the opinion of Her Majesty’s Government, be that the powers chiefly interested in the trade of the Pacific should join in making a formal declaration similar to that of 1843 above alluded to, and that the United States Government should, with England and Germany, guaranty the neutrality and equal accessibility of the islands and their harbors to the ships of all nations without preference.