he Sandwich Islands are subject to the
most capricious alterations, which, by confounding all ideas of right and
wrong in the minds of the natives, produce the most pernicious effects. In
no case is this mischief more plainly descernible than in the continually
shifting regulations concerning licentiousness. At one time the most
innocent freedoms between the sexes are punished with fine and
imprisonment; at another the revocation of the statute is followed by the
most open and undisguised profligacy.

It so happened that at the period of Paulet's arrival the Connecticut blue
laws had been for at least three weeks steadily enforced. In consequence
of this, the fort at Honolulu was filled with a great number of young
girls, who were confined there doing penance for their slips from virtue.
Paulet, although at first unwilling to interfere with regulations having
reference solely to the natives themselves, was eventually, by the
prevalence of certain reports, induced to institute a strict inquiry into
the internal administration of General Kekuanoa, governor of the island of
Oahu, one of the pillars of the Hawaiian Church, and captain of the fort.
He soon ascertained that numbers of the young females employed during the
day at work intended for the benefit of the king, were at night smuggled
over the ramparts of the fort--which on one side directly overhangs the
sea--and were conveyed by stealth on board such vessels as had contracted
with the General to be supplied with them. Before daybreak they returned
to their quarters, and their own silence with regard to these secret
excursions was purchased by a small portion of those wages of iniquity
which were placed in the hands of Kekuanoa.

The vigour with which the laws concerning licentiousness were at that
period enforced, enabled the General to monopolise in a great measure the
detestable trade in which he was engaged, and there consequently flowed
into his coffers--and some say into those of the government
also--considerable sums of money. It is indeed a lamentable fact that the
principal revenue of the Hawaiian government is derived from the fines
levied upon, or rather the licences taken out by Vice, the prosperity of
which is linked with that of the government. Were the people to become
virtuous the authorities would become poor; but from present indications
there is little apprehension to be entertained on that score.

Some five months after the date of the cession,