Page:Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen.pdf/303

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Some Important Inquiries
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landed, and the result would be the loss of the independence of our country. Believing that he spoke by authority, and that the day of release from the oppression of the stranger was near, I continued from the day of my retirement at Washington Place to impress upon all the necessity for abstaining from riot or disturbance.

The people listened to my voice, and obeyed my will with a submission that kept the community free from disorder far more than any law or restraint of that which has called itself a government. Many a time have I heard that the Hawaiians would no longer submit to their oppressors, that they were about to appeal to fire and the sword; but I have always dissuaded them from commencing any such measures. This discontent was not confined to the people of native or even part native birth. Those of foreign ancestry not in sympathy with the revolutionists, those whose daily comfort had been disturbed or whose business had been made unprofitable or ruined by the rich and powerful missionary party, appealed to me and my friends to restore the old order of things, that prosperity might again smile on the majority, instead of being locked up in the bank accounts of a very few.

It subsequently became known to me through other sources, although not until long after the date about which I now write, that the Senate had taken matters out of the hands of President Cleveland, and had conducted an independent investigation in the city of Washington, at which O. P. Emerson, Peter C. Jones, Z. S. Spalding, W. D. Alexander, Lieutenant Lucien Young,