Copy of a Letter from the Missionaries of Hawaii to Richard Charlton, Esq., His Brittanic Majesty's Consul at the Sandwich Islands.
Hilo, Hawaii, July 15th, 1834.
Dear Sir: Our hearts almost fail us when we undertake to perform the melancholy duty which devolves upon us, to communicate the painful intelligence of the death of our friend Mr. Douglas, and such particulars as we have been able to gather respecting this distressing providence. The tidings reached us when we were every moment awaiting his arrival, and expecting to greet him with a cordial welcome: but alas! He whose thoughts and ways are not as ours, saw fit to order it otherwise; and instead of being permitted to hail the living friend, our hearts have been made to bleed while performing the offices of humanity to his mangled corpse. Truly we must say, that the "ways of the Lord are mysterious, and His judgments past finding out!" but it is our unspeakable consolation to know, that those ways are directed by infinite wisdom and mercy, and that though "clouds and darkness are round about Him, yet righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne!" But we proceed to lay before you as full information as it is in our power to do at the present time, concerning this distressing event. As Mr. Diell was standing in the door of Mr. Goodrich's house yesterday morning, about eight o'clock, a native came up, and with an expression of countenance which indicated but too faithfully that he was the bearer of sad tidings, enquired for Mr. Goodrich. On seeing him, he communicated the dreadful intelligence, that the body of Mr. Douglas had been found on the mountains, in a pit excavated for the purpose of taking wild cattle, and that he was supposed to have been killed by the bullock that was in the pit, when the animal [he?] fell in. Never were our feelings so shocked, nor could we credit the report, till it was painfully affirmed as we proceeded to the beach, whither his body had been conveyed in a canoe, by the natives who informed us of his death. As we walked down with the native, and made further inquiries of him, he gave for substance the following relation: That on the evening of the 13th instant, the natives who brought the body down from the mountain came to his house at Laupashoohoi, about twenty-five or thirty miles distant from Hilo, and employed him to bring it to this place in his canoe—the particulars which he learned from them were as follows: that Mr. D. left Rohala Point last week, in company with a foreigner (an Englishman), as a guide, and proceeded to cross Mouna Roa on the North side—that on the 12th he dismissed his guide, who cautioned him, on parting, to be very careful lest he should fall into the pits excavated for the purpose mentioned above; describing them as near the place where the cattle resorted to drink—that soon after Mr. D.
