Wyllie to Thomas J. Dryer , Com’r of the United States to the Hawaiian Islands, July 27, 1861

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Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 24th instant, with its four enclosures, which you did me the great favor of delivering personally, along with verbal explanations, for which I beg to thank you in the name of the King’s government.

By your despatch and its enclosures I am informed that the honorable Secretary of State, William H. Seward, apprehensive lest, “under the pretended authority of the so-called Confederate States of America,” privateers might be fitted out in the ports of this kingdom for the purpose of aggression on the commerce of the United States, instructed you, on the 20th of April last, to be vigilant in preventing any such unlawful purpose; to make known to the proper authorities of this government the proclamations issued by the President; impart to them all facts upon the subject which might come to your knowledge; and to ascertain from the King’s government, officially, what course they intended to pursue with regard to vessels of that description frequenting the King’s waters, or touching for supplies or repairs at any of the ports in his Majesty’s dominions; all which instructions you carried out very fully, and with great courtesy, in your precited despatch, and in the facts, no less important to the United States than to this kingdom, which you were pleased to impart to me verbally on the occasion of its delivery.

In reply, I have the honor to refer you to the proclamation of the late King of 16th May, 1854, asserting his neutral rights within the whole extent of his jurisdiction, declaring all captures and seizures made within that jurisdiction to be unlawful, and prohibiting his subjects from engaging, either directly or indirectly, in privateering, under the penalty of being treated and punished as pirates; to the resolution of his late Majesty, in privy council of 15th June, 1854, prohibiting the sale of prizes within his jurisdiction, and to the resolution of his late Majesty, in privy council of the 17th July of the same year, prohibiting all privateers, and prizes made by them, from entering the ports of this kingdom, unless in such circumstances of distress that their exclusion would involve a sacrifice of life, and then only under special permission of the King, after proof to his Majesty’s satisfaction of such circumstances of distress; copies of all which you will find in your archives, for they were duly passed at the time to the Hon. David L. Gregg for his own and the information of his government.

I have the honor to enclose copy of the reply of the honorable judges of the supreme court, dated yesterday, in reply to my letters to them of the 5th, 10th, 13th, and 24th instant, from which you will see that, in their opinion, the said proclamation and resolutions are in accordance with the rights of the King, and with his Majesty’s duties as a neutral sovereign to the United States; and that under the same neither can privateers be fitted out in the ports of this kingdom, nor can its ports be used as a depot for the spoils or the prisoners made by privateers.

Therefore it only remains for me to make known to the King, who is at Kailua, your despatch and its enclosures, also the opinion of his Majesty’s judges of the supreme court, and to suggest to his Majesty that he be pleased to issue a proclamation revalidating the aforesaid proclamation and resolutions, with an order that copies of such proclamation be published in the Polynesian, and served immediately by the pilots or harbor master upon any belligerent vessel that may appear in his Majesty’s waters, until the conclusion of the civil war now unhappily devastating the United States.

You can assure the honorable Secretary of State of your government that the King, knowing well his obligations and responsibilities to the United States under the law of nations and the existing treaty, will neglect no means to fulfil them to the utmost extent of his power; but destitute as you know him to be of either army, navy, or forts, that power is only moral, and if armed vessels should enter his waters, disregarding alike his neutral rights and the law of nations, captures might be made within his jurisdiction contrary to his proclamation, and in spite of all the efforts that he could make to prevent them.

Therefore I repeat what I had the honor to state to you verbally, that in a port where many millions of value in American whaleships, oil and bone, and in merchant vessels, are often to be found, and which might be captured or burnt by one strong privateer, in defiance of all the King’s forces, it is of urgent necessity that Honolulu should not be left without the presence of a vessel-of-war of the United States of sufficient power to deter any such privateer from committing aggressions on the ships or property of the citizens of the United States within the King’s jurisdiction. I was happy to understand from you that you had not neglected to make such a recommendation to your government.

In conclusion, let me assure you that in this and every other international matter it will afford me the utmost pleasure to confer and concert with you with all that frankness and confidence that, according to Martens and other publicists, ought to exist between a foreign representative and the minister of foreign affairs of the country to which he is accredited and sent; but more especially be assured of the high respect and very distinguished consideration with which I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient, humble servant,