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a brig and cargo to Kaumuali‘i, but he found to his chagrin that Kaumuali‘i had recently purchased another brig, the Becket, and its cargo from representatives of Bryant and Sturgis.

      In order to dispose of his ship and cargo, Jones then turned to Liholiho, on O‘ahu, who rebuffed his initial offer, saying that he wanted to buy no more ships: “I treated him with every attention and honour, made him handsome presents and gave him elegant dinners after much trouble and difficulty I succeeded in selling the Brig and cargo including the house for 7700 piculs of wood payable in one year the boat he has given me an obligation to pay when she will be finished, per twice full.”⁶⁴ Jones regularly inflated in excess the price of goods and ships, a problem enabled by the fact that there was no agreed-upon rate of exchange.⁶⁵ On another occasion, Jones asked his employers to send out a billiard table—“one that you might get for $200 would command at least $1500”—as Liholiho was “quite anxious for one.”⁶⁶

      Unfortunately for the merchants, some of the ali‘i were also getting excellent advice from the young Hawaiian men who had lived in New England for many years. “Our worst enemy at Atooi, I found to be Mr. George Tamoree [son of Kaumuali‘i] he endeavored all in his power to prevent the sale of the Brig but fortunately he has no influence with his father, he has become a worthless dissipated fellow, of no advantage to anyone.”⁶⁷ On numerous occasions Jones extended “credit” to Kaumuali‘i in the form of goods delivered in exchange for promise of future pay. He also extended credit to the chief, who he referred to on occasion as “the King,” by building up Kaumuali‘i as a copartner in expediting the business of sandalwood in numerous letters sent to his employers.⁶⁸ This connection between father and long-lost son must have been a blow to Jones, as Kaumuali‘i and he enjoyed a lively trading relationship. Jones must have felt awkward in this position, since he would have a hard time denying the younger Kaumuali‘i’s accusations of inflated prices for goods they both knew cost significantly less back home in New England. The Hawaiian missionary assistants who were educated at the Cornwall Foreign Mission School regularly counseled Liholiho and the chiefs on the costs of goods. Houses, they argued, were bought for $300 in America, and thereafter the chiefs offered only forty piculs for a house that might have fetched, under the trade expectations of New England agents, thousands of piculs earlier in the year.⁶⁹

      As trading became more difficult over the years, by 1823 merchants were beginning to direct their anger at the American missionaries who had arrived two years before and who by March were actively awaiting the second company to reinforce them in their labors. Stations had been set up on Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, and Hawai‘i, but the mission had already lost a doctor and his wife, who had been excommunicated from the little church. Jones vented in a letter to his employers that the missionaries “from the Andover mill” were getting in the way of trade, because they “are continually telling the King and chiefs that the white people traders are cheating and imposing on them.”⁷⁰ What really angered Jones was that the missionaries were, in his words, “blood suckers of the community, had much better be in their native country gaining their living by the sweat of their brow, than living like lords in this luxurious land, distracting the minds of these children of nature with the idea that they are to be eternally damned unless they think and act as they do.”⁷¹ Jones was bothered that while he earned an “honest” living working as a trader, his fellow Americans, the missionaries, were living like chiefs in Hawai‘i, “the luxurious land.” Jones was suffering from a class conflict, one that pitted himself against his fellow Americans, most of whom had come from farming backgrounds, but who were more adept apparently in garnering the attention and condescension of the chiefs. Jones even suggested a divine solution to the problem of the missionaries: “O that Providence would put a whip in every honest hand to lash such rascals naked through the world.”⁷²

      Intense debates among the chiefs began to surface in the ‘aha ‘ōlelo, or Hawaiian chiefly council, by 1823 regarding large purchases made by individual chiefs. These discussions illustrate Hawaiian negotiations over power and status, and perhaps the recognition among ali‘i that they must consolidate their power as a unified group against the would-be predations of merchant agents. The merchants, for their part, hoped to interject themselves into and sought to manipulate the relations between chiefs in order to promote their business.

      Agents desperate to make sales would often seek a meeting with Liholiho, who was often inebriated. Therefore, agents were forced to negotiate with Kālaimoku. In May, just after Charles Hammatt arrived in the islands, he had a meeting with Kālaimoku, who had sent for him to discuss the king’s plan to purchase a ship. Hammatt spotted Kālaimoku “sitting down on the grass before the King’s house.” The elder statesman offered eighty piculs of wood for the boat, but after a half-hour conversation, Hammatt became frustrated, telling the chief, “I would sooner burn her” than agree to this price. But Kalaimoku had made it known to the merchants that for anybody who trades with the king when he is drunk, “the bargain will not stand.” According to Hammatt, Kālaimoku’s say was “potential,” meaning the final most powerful word.⁷³

      Hammatt would write with increasing frequency of the wise counsels of Kālaimoku, noting on several occasions that there was a rift developing between Liholiho Kamehameha II and Kālaimoku, Ka‘ahumanu, and the rest of the high chiefs. It was the family of the minister, Hammatt claimed, “who in reality hold the sovereignty of the kingdom, and have rather permitted this man to be called King than considered him as such. They have now abandoned him to his own guidance, and if he does not soon kill himself, they may put him down by force. Under these circumstances I am afraid to trade with him, and certainly shall not do it, to any considerable amount, without the sanction of Krymakoo. The King cannot command a man, or obtain a stick of wood without the assistance of Pitt or some of his clan.”⁷⁴

      A few months later, the chief Kaikio‘ewa, who was guardian of Kauikeaouli, the youngest son of Kamehameha and Liholiho’s younger brother, met with Charles Hammatt to discuss his purchase of the schooner Ann. According to the terms of their agreement, Kaikio‘ewa would pay twelve hundred piculs over the course of five months, beginning on June 17, 1823. In August, the chief met with Hammatt again and reported that there had been a meeting of the chiefs and that Kālaimoku, Ka‘ahumanu, Boki (Kālaimoku’s brother), and Cox were all opposed to the purchase, largely because the ship was “old & rotten and good for nothing.” Hammatt coolly played his hand, saying that he would take the ship back if that was what the chief wished. When Kaikio‘ewa replied that he did not want to give the ship back, but pointed out repairs and supplies needed to get the ship under sail, Hammatt lost all patience, accusing the chief of breaking his contract and his word, a serious charge. When the chief remonstrated that Kālaimoku and Ka‘ahumanu were both pressuring him to return the ship, Hammatt asked provocatively if Kaikio‘ewa was the servant of Kālaimoku and the old woman: “are you bound to obey their orders, or are you a chief at liberty to do as you please?” Kaikio‘ewa protested vehemently that “he was a chief, would be a chief,” and “would keep the vessel.”

      Hammatt won that round, but in the end, the wishes of Kaikio‘ewa, Kālaimoku, Ka‘ahumanu, and the other ali‘i would prevail. Kaikio‘ewa returned the schooner nineteen days later because it was leaky and needed new coppering, rigging, and planks, things which Hammatt simply could not supply. Though Hammatt fully expected this turn of events, since the Ann was not fitted properly for sail, and it was leaking, he still raged that it would be better to sell the ship on the coast than “to the damned scoundrels here, who are held by no contract, and who regard no promises.”⁷⁵

      Hammatt’s hard bargaining and coercive manipulation of Ka‘ikioewa’s sense of his authority in relation to the other ali‘i was no match for the pressure that the high-ranking ali‘i Ka‘ahumanu and Kālaimoku could place upon any individual ali‘i who did not comply with the wishes of the ‘aha ‘ōlelo. Hawaiian structures of power and authority could not be transposed effectively upon the merchant’s ideal individual as consumer; indeed, Hawaiian ali‘i clearly were engaging in trade on their own terms, following their own political agendas. When merchants attempted to cheat them by selling rotten or unfinished boats, chiefs refused to fulfill the agreed-upon terms of exchange by simply returning items they no longer found to their

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