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 entered into special obligations as to the cession of a port and alienation of territory, and occupied towards the United States a relation different from that towards all other countries. King Kalakaua had made an aliiance with the Samoan king, and in 1887 the approval of the government of the United States was asked to the compact. Mr. Bayard pointed out the inexpediency of it, and withheld approval.

The prosperity which attended the reciprocity arrangement replenished the royal treasury, and Kalakaua sought to make the most out of his good fortune. He first visited the United States, where he was received in a manner becoming a royal neighbor. Afterwards he made a tour of the world and was entertained by the governments and crowned heads of Asia and of Europe. He returned home with ambitious ideas for himself and his kingdom. In 1883 he published a protest against the seizure by Great Britain and France of various groups in Polynesia, while the alliance with Samoa was another of his schemes for giving importance to his reign.

An adventurer named Gibson had ingratiated himself into the favor of Kalakaua, and had been made prime minister, and the Samoan alliance was attempted under his auspices. Gibson claimed to be the heir of a great English family; he had been imprisoned in Java, whence he escaped to Salt Lake City, and was sent by Brigham Young as a Mormon apostle to Hawaii; becoming involved in trouble with the "Saints," he became a Protestant, but in a little while transferred his spiritual allegiance to the Pope, and was soon an