These repeated efforts at annexation and commercial reciprocity awakened the jealousy of the British and other foreign merchants resident in the islands, and their views were echoed by their diplomatic representatives; but men of foresight in England did not seem so blinded to coming events. The Hawaiian commissioners who visited Europe in 1850 (of which notice has already been taken), in their interviews with the British premier, were advised to look forward to becoming an integral part of the United States. " Such," said Lord Palmerston, "was the destiny of the Hawaiian Islands, arising from their proximity to the State of California and Oregon and natural dependence on those markets for exports and imports, together with the probable extinction of the Hawaiian aboriginal population, and its substitution by immigration from the United States." The London "Post," in discussing the annexation project of 1853–54, while speaking in not very complimentary terms of "American rapacity," stated that the predominance of American influence made the acquisition of the islands most natural, and that it should be regarded as a circumstance auspicious to the commerce of the world.[1]
A fear existed in the islands that the American market, their chief dependence for prosperity, might be closed to them by adverse tariffs, and the efforts for a reciprocity treaty continued through the succeeding ten years, during which time one king followed another in
- ↑ A. H. Allen's report, S. Ex. Doc. No. 45, 52d Cong. 2d Sess. pp. 14–18; Alexander's Hist. Hawaii, 273–292; Hopkins's Hawaii, 325, 397; London Post, Oct. 24, 1854.
