outset on my private knowledge of the signatory and his sect. It
may offend others; scarcely you, who have been so busy to collect,
so bold to publish, gossip on your rivals. And this is perhaps the
moment when I may best explain to you the character of what you are
to read: I conceive you as a man quite beyond and below the
reticences of civility: with what measure you mete, with that
shall it be measured you again; with you, at last, I rejoice to
feel the button off the foil and to plunge home. And if in aught
that I shall say I should offend others, your colleagues, whom I
respect and remember with affection, I can but offer them my
regret; I am not free, I am inspired by the consideration of
interests far more large; and such pain as can be inflicted by
anything from me must be indeed trifling when compared with the
pain with which they read your letter. It is not the hangman, but
the criminal, that brings dishonour on the house.

You belong, sir, to a sect--I believe my sect, and that in which my
ancestors laboured--which has enjoyed, and partly failed to
utilise, an exceptional advantage in the islands of Hawaii. The
first missionaries came; they found the land already self-purged of
its old and bloody faith; they were embraced, almost on their
arrival, with enthusiasm; what troubles they supported came far
more from whites than from Hawaiians; and to these last they stood
(in a rough figure) in the shoes of God. This is not the place to
enter into the degree or causes of their failure, such as it is.
One element alone is pertinent, and must here be plainly dealt
with. In the course of their evangelical calling, they--or too
many of them--grew rich. It may be news to you that the houses of
missionaries are a cause of mocking on the streets of Honolulu. It
will at least be news to you, that when I returned your civil