Ralph S. Kuykendall
The first attempts to establish steam navigation among the Hawaiian islands were made by men engaged in similar enterprises in California; they were part of a much larger movement. The expansion of the United States to the Pacific coast, the extraordinarily rapid settlement of California after the discovery of gold in that region, and the quick rise of San Francisco to a position of importance in the commercial and maritime world deepened American interest in the Pacific region and in the trade of eastern Asia. This led naturally to discussion of the subject of steam navigation in the Pacific. Steamships were soon placed in operation along the American coast, and tentative plans were made for steamship lines to cross the great ocean to Hawaii, to the Orient, and to the British colonies in Australia and New Zealand. Projects for the annexation of Hawaii to the United States were another result of the same expansion movement, and there appears to have been a relationship between the idea of annexation and at least one of the schemes for putting steamships into the interisland service. Immediately after the beginning of the gold rush to California and before its full effect on Hawaii could be very clearly foreseen, the editor of the Honolulu Polynesian remarked on November 11, 1848, "We believe the time has arrived when a steamer to ply between the islands would pay."* During the next three years, several parties showed a definite interest in this subject,13and one of them took preliminary steps toward the establishment of steam navigation among the islands. In the summer of 1851, Captain William A. Howard of San Francisco visited Honolulu and on behalf of himself and associates applied to the government for the exclusive right to maintain steamer service between the islands for a period of seven years, with certain privileges to promote the success of the enterprise.14 The application was favorably considered, and on July 25, 1851, the king signed an ordinance grantin
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