No. 15.
The Commissioners
of the Hawaiian Provisional Government to Mr.
Foster.
Sir: The ex-Queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani, having sent to the President of the United States a protest against the action of the Hawaiian Provisional Government, we beg to make a brief reply to the statements contained in such protest.
The protest sets forth as the two main grounds of complaint the fact that certain of her subjects had revolted against her, aided by United States troops, and, secondly, that the Provisional Government had chartered the only available steamer at Honolulu, upon which they had sent commissioners to Washington and had refused to allow a representative from the Queen to come forward by the same steamer.
Before replying to these two statements we call attention to the fact that the protest entirely suppresses the fact that the Queen herself had been guilty of an illegal act; that she had herself initiated violence, and that the action taken by the subjects who had, as she says, revolted against her was in resistance to her own attempted subversion of the constitution and laws of the land. As the fact that she did make such [Page 237] an attempt with threats against her legal advisers, and with a show and preparation, is not denied by the Queen or anyone on her behalf, we submit that the omission of any reference to such undoubted facts, so radically essential to a proper understanding of the matter, properly tends to throw discredit upon the Queen’s statements.
In reply to the charge that United States troops assisted in the overthrow of the monarchy, we deny the statement most emphatically.
A brief recital of the facts, without argument on our part, is amply sufficient to show the incorrectness of the charge made.
Such facts are briefly these:
- First. At the time of the initiation of the trouble by the attempt of the Queen to submit the constitution and promulgate a new one, the American minister and the American ship-of-war Boston were both absent from Honolulu and had been for ten days previously thereto.
- Second. The first exhibition of force was made by the Queen on Saturday, the 14th of January, by the public parading of the entire military force, armed with repeating rifles and carrying a full supply of ball cartridges. The members of the police department were also armed. In addition thereto there were located at the palace and barracks and the police station an additional body of armed men to the number of 540 according to their own statement. This additional body of armed men was not authorized by law and was assembled contrary to a specific law of the Kingdom.
- Third. The first call to arms in opposition to the Queen was issued by the cabinet on the afternoon of January 14.
- Fourth. Although on Saturday, the 14th, Sunday, the 15th, and Monday, the 16th, the most intense feelings of hostility were publicly manifested between the adherents of the Queen on the one hand and the promoters of the movement for the establishment of a Provisional Government on the other, with every indication of an armed conflict which might be precipitated at any moment, it was not until 5 o’clock on Monday afternoon, the 16th of January, after the request had been made to the American minister by many American citizens, that the United States troops were landed.
- Fifth. Upon landing, a guard was posted at the American consulate and legation, and the remainder of the troops were quartered that night in a public hall hired for that purpose. Up to the time the commissioners left Honolulu at 9 o’clock on the morning of the 19th of January, all of the American troops had remained upon the premises where they were respectively located. No demonstration was made by the troops in any manner whatever. The uniform of the United States was not seen upon the streets, except upon the persons of the individual officers passing between the points at which troops were located in the execution of their own business.
- Sixth. At the time the Provisional Government took possession of the Government buildings, no American troops or officers were present or took part in such proceedings in any manner whatever. No public recognition was accorded the Provisional Government by the American minister until they were in possession of the Government buildings, the archives, and the treasury, supported by several hundred armed men, and after the abdication by the Queen and the surrender to the Provisional Government of her forces.
It is submitted that the foregoing statement of facts amply meets the charge made by the Queen that American troops coerced her action in abdication.
In reply to the second statement of the Queen, that the Provisional [Page 238] Government took the only vessel available to go to San Francisco and refused to allow her representative to come to San Francisco thereon, we beg to state that the charge is entirely incorrect.
As a matter of fact, the Inter Island fleet of steamers consists of twenty vessels, all of which, with two exceptions, were built abroad and navigated to the islands. Of such vessels at least ten are as fnlly capable of making the trip to San Francisco as was the vessel chartered and dispatched by the Provisional Government.
As the Provisional Government had allowed a mail to be sent by the chartered steamer, they did not consider that there was any reason for financially assisting the Queen in forwarding to Washington an agent hostile to the Government and its objects. So far as is known to the commissioners, there is no reason why the Queen should not have chartered a steamer at Honolulu and forwarded an agent to San Francisco thereon if she had desired so to do. Certainly there was nothing done by the Provisional Government to prevent her doing so.
With assurances of the highest consideration, etc.,
- L. A. Thurston,
- W. C. Wilder,
- Wm. N. Castle,
- J. Marsden,
- Charles L. Carter,
Commissioners of the Hawaiian Provisional Government.