Northwest Trader Hawaiian Islands 115 the greatest opprobrium for this practice has generally been cast on the American traders. Our information now shows that this English trader, Captain Brown, was one of the worst offenders in this regard, so much so that his death not long after at Honolulu takes on the character of a just retribution. The evidence on this point, while not very extensive, is perfectly clear and convincing. Two charges can be brought against Captain Brown: (1) that he sold firearms and ammunition to the natives of the Hawaiian Islands; and (2) that he in- cited the chiefs to keep up the internecine warfare which was in large measure responsible for the frightful de- population of the islands during this period. In order to understand the significance of these events it is necessary to take into consideration the political situation in the Hawaiian Islands. The three visits of Captain Brown coincide roughly with the visits of Van- couver and fall in the interval between the end of the first important period of the rise of Kamehameha and the final consolidation of the group under his rule. Kamehameha had made himself master of the island of Hawaii, but was still engaged in the long and bitter struggle with Kahekili, the great king of Maui and prac- tical overlord of all the leeward islands (and, according to some Hawaiian legends, the father of Kamehameha). Toward the end of this interval Kahekili died, apparently of old age, leaving his possessions to his less able brother, Kaeokulani, and son, Kalanikupule. This fact and the presence of Captain Brown's ships had an important bearing upon the final success of Kamehameha. During his first visit to the islands, in February, 1793, Brown, in exchange for provisions, seems to have sold guns and ammunition indiscriminately to both sides of the inter-island struggle, though Kamehameha seems to have gotten rather the worst of the bargain. The anony- mous author of the New Vancouver Journal, writing off
