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Washington the past winter. One of these was placed in the new Congressional Library; the other was sent abroad as my contribution to the souvenirs of this Jubilee year of Her Majesty, the great and good Queen Victoria.
From this brief sketch of my life at the capital, it would appear that my mind was fully employed, had there been no political questions to interest me. Yet was it natural that I should forget my own people and their misfortunes? Let me, therefore, return to the annexationists and their plots. While I had been no more than an interested observer, quietly awaiting the course of justice, and conscious of the strength derived from truth and right on my side, their commissioners, with such influences as their indomitable assurance could command, had been working very hard to get the present rule in Hawaii out of its political and financial difficulties, by passing over to the United States a country whose hospitality they have betrayed, a land which they do not and never can own.
My friends in Honolulu had never forgotten me, and the arrival of every mail kept me informed of all that transpired throughout Hawaii. With the advantages which were mine of learning the attitude of men and parties in Washington, there was little that took place with which I was not thoroughly acquainted before it reached the columns of the newspapers. Thus, understanding perfectly the kind of men sent one after another by the so-called Republic of Hawaii to Washington, I was easily able to separate truth from falsehood in the accounts inspired by the missionary party,