HAWAIIAN  ISLANDS.	99
far from approving in all things the conduct of the French agent in 
1849. Since his retirement from the ministry there have been such 
frequent changes in the department of foreign affairs that I have had 
no suitable opportunity of recurring to the subject in the brief periods 
of official intercourse with the successive ministers who have tempora- 
rily occupied the department; nor indeed did I suppose from all that 
has come to my knowledge that there was any serious danger of meas- 
ures being pursued which might compromise the independence or over- 
awe the freedom of action of the Hawaiian Government in regard to 
the matters in dispute.
Since the receipt of your dispatch, I have felt it my duty to address 
a communication to the minister of foreign affairs, setting forth plainly 
and frankly, but in a tone not calculated to wound the pride or dignity 
of the French Government, the views of the Government of the United 
States as embodied in your dispatch, the deep interest it feels in the 
independence of the Sandwich Islands, and the danger that would con- 
sequently arise of an interruption of the good understanding now hap- 
pily existing between France and the United States, if measures should 
be pursued by her authority incompatible with a just respect of that 
independence. To give the full effect you desire to these representa- 
tions, it seemed to me indispensable that they should be made in writ- 
ing, for, besides the consideration that mere verbal communications 
never have the weight and importance that are attached to written 
ones, a strong additional reason is furnished by the changes of ministry 
which so frequently occur here for placing the views of the Govern- 
ment of the United States on record, where they will pass under the 
eyes of whatever ministers may successively be called to conduct the 
department of foreign affairs. A copy of the communication ad- 
dressed to me by the minister of foreign affairs is herewith inclosed. 
I shall return to Paris in a few days, and if anything of importance 
should occur in my interview with the minister I will embrace the 
earliest opportunity to communicate it to you. 
I have the honor to be, etc.,
W. C. RIVES.
Mr. Webster to Mr. Severance.
No. 4.]	DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, July 14, 1851. 
LUTHER SEVERANCE, Esq.:
SIR: Your confidential communications, Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, 
have been duly received, submitted to the President, and by him con- 
sidered.
They relate to a subject of great importance, not only to the Hawai- 
ian Government and its citizens, but also to the United States.
The Government of the United States was the 'first to acknowledge 
the national existence of the Hawaiian Government, and to treat with it 
as an independent state. Its example was soon followed by several of 
the Governments of Europe; and the United States, true to its treaty 
obligations, has in no case interfered with the Hawaiian Government 
for the purpose of opposing the course of its own independent conduct, 
or of dictating to it any particular line of policy. In acknowledging the 
independence of the islands, and of the Government established over

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