Coan's native church in the morning, and
the foreign church at night, when the choir sang a very fine anthem.
I don't wish to write about his faults, which have doubtless been
rumoured in the English papers. It is hoped that his new
responsibilities will assist him to conquer them, else I fear he may
go the way of several of the Hawaiian kings. He has begun his reign
with marked good sense in selecting as his advisers confessedly the
best men in his kingdom, and all his public actions since his
election have shown both tact and good feeling. If sons, as is
often asserted, take their intellects from their mothers, he should
be decidedly superior, for his mother, Kekauluohi, a chieftainess of
the highest rank, and one of the queens of Kamehameha II., who died
in London, was in 1839 chosen for her abilities by Kamehameha III.
as his kuhina nui, or premier, an officer recognised under the old
system of Hawaiian government as second only in authority to the
king, and without whose signature even his act was not legal. As
Kaahumanu II. she continued to hold this important position until
her death in 1845.
But the present king does not come of the direct line of the
Hawaiian kings, but of a far older family.
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