sent many laborers to our plantations. We know now what imported or contract labor means. It must be remembered that at this date the experiment was in its infancy, and the question was to find some class of laborers who would not suffer in our tropical climate at field labor. The conclusion cannot be avoided, that if my brother had indeed sought his own pleasure rather than the good of all residents under our flag, his family would be in their hereditary rights to this day. By his liberality to those of American birth he inaugurated the treaty of reciprocity; by his investigations and solution of the problem of labor he gave them the opportunity to raise sugar at an enormous profit; and he thus devoted the earlier part of his reign to the aggrandizement of the very persons, who, as soon as they had become rich and powerful, forgot his generosity, and plotted a subversion of his authority, and an overthrow of the constitution under which the kingdom had been happily governed for nearly a quarter of a century. This was accomplished by them in 1887, as will be seen when I reach that date in my recollections. After his studies of the labor question in the East, my brother made a tour of the chief countries of civilized Europe, returning by way of Washington, and in every place receiving from all classes many marks of personal attention or national courtesy. He arrived home on the 29th of October, 1881; and this was naturally followed by my immediate resignation of the office of chief ruler, which I had held for nine months and as many days.
