the United States of America," until a satisfactory adjustment could be made with France, "or, if such arrangements be found impracticable, then it is our wish and pleasure that the protection aforesaid under the United States of America be perpetual." This proclamation was signed March 10, 1851, and was delivered sealed to the American commissioner, on condition that if hostilities were begun by the French it was to be opened and carried into effect; but otherwise to be held to be void.
This provisional cession and the troubles which brought it about were reported to the Department of State by the commissioner, Mr. Severance, and Secretary Webster informed him, in reply, that while it was the purpose of the United States to observe scrupulously the independence of the Hawaiian Islands, it could never consent to see them taken possession of by either of the great commercial powers of Europe, nor could it consent that demands, manifestly unjust and derogatory and inconsistent with a bona fide independence, should be enforced against that government. Respecting the cession of the sovereignty to the United States, he reminded the commissioner that it was a subject above any functions with which he was charged, that he should forbear to express an opinion upon it, as the government at Washington alone could decide it, and that he must return to the Hawaiian government the document placed in his hands.
The French controversy happily did not reach the acute form of hostilities, and was finally adjusted by an agreement assuring the Catholic clergy of full liberty
