quick succession, the lives of some of them being shortened by intemperance and immorality. The line of the Kamehamehas became extinct, and one ruler after another dying without a designated successor, disorder and riots ensued, growing out of the election of a head to the enfeebled government, and the presence on shore of American marines was time and again invoked to preserve the public peace.
During the administration of President Grant, Secretary Fish authorized new negotiations for reciprocity, so ardently desired by the Hawaiians. In his instructions to the American minister he referred to the condition of the government and its evident tendency to decay and dissolution, to the danger of its falling under foreign control, and stated that "we desire no additional similar outposts [as Bermuda] in the hands of those who may at some future time use them to our disadvantage." While authorized to entertain propositions for reciprocity, the minister was not to discourage any feeling which might exist in favor of annexation. The negotiations were opened at Honolulu, but King Kalakaua, impressed with the importance of the matter, sent two commissioners to Washington, and their action resulted for the third time in a treaty of commercial reciprocity, those of 1855 and 1867 having failed, as noted, in the United States Senate.
This treaty provided for the free reciprocal introduction of practically all the products of Hawaii into the United States, and of those of the United States into Hawaii. The opposition of the advocates of annexation was overcome by the insertion of a stipulation that
