ABSTRACT
During the progress of the Crimean war, the possible extension of which was uncertain, the King, Kamehameha III. issued a proclamation of neutrality, with a prohibition to his subjects to engage, directly or indirectly, in privateering. Such a step may be cynically compared to the frogs in the fable protesting against the battle of the bulls. Admitting the similitude, it must be granted that the danger which threatened the Hawaiian kingdom from an European war was that which the frogs deprecated, and theirs was a situation in which insignificance would not act as a safeguard.
