council of the chiefs to be convened by the king, Kamehameha, and, upon the promise of the captain that the British government would take them under its protection and send them a war vessel, they "acknowledged themselves to be subjects of Great Britain." A copper plate was prepared with an inscription reciting the fact that the king and chiefs of the island of Hawaii "had ceded the island to his Britannic Majesty;" this tablet was placed in a conspicuous position, with much ceremony, the firing of salutes, and distribution of presents; and the squadron sailed away without further act of occupation. The report of Vancouver's action reached England during the troubles growing out of the French Revolution, and no further attention was given to the matter or steps taken to confirm the cession.
As early as 1809 the Russians had visited the islands, and a few years later had some trade relations with them. It is alleged that Baranoff, the able governor of Russian America, seeing the desirability of making the islands a part of the Russian possessions on the Pacific, set on foot an expedition for that purpose. In the year 1815 a vessel dispatched by him arrived at Kauai, and its commander, after some conference with the authorities, landed on the island, and proceeded to build a stone fort, over which the Russian flag was raised. Tikhmeneff, the Russian historian, states that an agreement was made with the king of Kauai for commercial privileges, by which he placed his island under the protection of the emperor of Russia; and that when the agreement reached the Czar he declined to ratify it. But however that may be, as soon as
