It is never safe to forecast destiny; yet it seems most probable
that sooner or later in this century, the closing catastrophe must
come. The more thoughtful among the natives acquiesce helplessly
and patiently in their advancing fate; but the less intelligent, as
I had some opportunity of hearing at Hilo, are becoming restive and
irritable, and may drift into something worse if the knowledge of
the annexationist views of the foreigners is diffused among them.
Things are preparing for change, and I think that the Americans will
be wise in their generation if they let them ripen for many years to
come. Lunalilo has a broken constitution, and probably will not
live long. Kalakaua will probably succeed him, and "after him the
deluge," unless he leaves a suitable successor, for there are no
more chiefs with pre-eminent claims to the throne. The feeling
among the people is changing, the feudal instinct is disappearing,
the old despotic line of the Kamehamehas is extinct; and king-making
by paper ballots, introduced a few months ago, is an approximation
to president-making, with the canvassing, stumping, and wrangling,
incidental to such a contested election. Annexation, or peaceful
absorption, is the "manifest destiny" of the islands, with the
probable result lately most wittily prophesied by Mark Twain in the
New York Tribune, but it is impious and impolitic to hasten it.
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