This king constructed immense fish-
ponds on the sea coast, and devoted himself to commerce with such
success that in one year he exported $400,000 of sandalwood (felled
and shipped at the cost of much suffering to the common people), and
on finding that a large proportion of the profit had been dissipated
by harbour dues at Canton, he took up the idea and established
harbour dues at Honolulu.
From Vancouver Kamehameha learned of the grandeur and power of
Christian nations; and in the idea that his people might grow great
through Christianity, he asked him, in 1794, that Christian teachers
might be sent from England. This request, if ever presented, was
disregarded, as was another made by Captain Turnbull in 1803, and
this exceptionally great Polynesian died the year before the light
of the Gospel shone on Hawaiian shores.
Some persons, it does not appear whether they were English or
American, attempted his conversion; but the astute savage, after
listening to their eloquent statements of the power of faith,
pressed on them as a crucial test to throw themselves from the top
of an adjacent precipice, making his reception of their religion
contingent on their arrival unhurt at its base.
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