step if you had not encouraged me to do so.
You have led me to the brink of a precipice and are now
leaving me to take the leap alone. Why not give the people
this constitution? You need have no fear. I will bear the
brunt of all the blame afterwards."

The cabinet stood firm, Mr. Peterson, the Attorney General,
repeating:

"We have not read the constitution."

"How dare you say that," she exclaimed, "when you have had
it in your possession for a month."

The dispute grew more violent as it went on. The cabinet
declined to resign when asked by her to do so, whereupon she
threatened that if they would not accede to her wishes she
would go to the palace door and tell the mob outside that
she wished to give them a new constitution but that her
ministers had prevented her from doing so.

At this threat three of the ministers left the room and
escaped from the building. They remembered the fate of
certain representatives who fell into the hands of a
Hawaiian mob in 1874. Mr. Parker alone had the courage to
remain. He feared that if the queen were left alone she
would sign the instrument herself, and proclaim it to the
people, telling them that her cabinet refused to comply with
her wishes and seeking to rouse against them the wrath of
the unthinking mob, whose only idea of the situation was
that the white men were opposing their queen.

The cabinet stood between two fires, that of the supporters
of the queen on the one hand and that of the white people of
Honolulu on the other. The report of the fleeing members
raised the excitement of the latter to the boiling pitch. A
Committee of Safety was at once organized, and held its
first meeting with closed doors.

"Gentlemen," said a member of this committee, "we are
brought face to face with this question; what shall we do?"

The discussion ended in a motion by the Hon. A.L. Thurston,
to the effect that "preliminary steps be taken at once to
form a provisional government, with a view to annexation to
the United States of America."

Meanwhile a sub-committee had waited on the United States
Minister, Mr. John L. Stevens, asking him to give them the
support of the United States troops on board the "Boston."

"Gentlemen," he replied, "I have no authority to involve the
United States Government in your revolution. I will request
to have troops landed to protect American life and property,
but for no other purpose."

Left to their own resources, the revolutionary par