The second Union Jack was the second flag to float authoritatively over the Hawaiian Islands. The fact that Ka-meha-meha placed the English flag over his government has sometimes been construed as a technical “cession of the islands to the English crown.” But the astute Ka-meha-meha, while looking for English protection from the greed of other nations, stipulated that the Hawaiians should “govern themselves in their own way and according to such laws as they themselves might impose.” The action of Vancouver was not ratified in England, owing to more important European questions, and a real protectorate was never established. Nevertheless, there was a nominal guardianship afforded by the presence of the English flag floating over the Hawaiian grass houses and fleets of boats.
It should be said that during preceding centuries each high chief had carried a pennant of coloured native cloth at the masthead of his double war canoe, but these were individual and family rather than national banners. [[202]]
At first the English flag was established only upon the island of Hawaii. Then it passed with Ka-meha-meha from island to island as he conquered the high chiefs and became the sole ruler of the group. When the king made Honolulu his chief royal residence the flag floated over his house near the seashore. On Kauai, the island farthest north of all the group, there was a strong Russian influence. The Russians built a fort at the mouth of one of the rivers. Against their armed possession of any part of the islands King Ka-meha-meha made strong objection, but, according to the statements of sailors, the Russian flag was used by the high chief of Kauai until finally displaced by the Hawaiian flag.
The English flag over Honolulu was a warning to other nations, and also to lawless individuals. No man could tell exactly how far to go in the presence of that flag. The sailors of those days unquestionably ran riot in wickedness, and the early influences of white civilisation were absolutely awful. But there was a limit beyond which the lawless element did not dare to pass. The flag would permit England to advance whatever claim might be desired in case of any great trouble.
This continued from 1794 to 1812. Then war broke out between England and the United States. Alexander, in a report to the Hawaiian Historical Society, says that upon the outbreak of this war [[203]]a friendly American persuaded Ka-meha-meha I “to have a flag of his own.”
An English Captain (George C. Beckley) some time near the beginning of the century brought a small ship to the islands and sold it to the chiefs. He then settled in Honolulu and became a friend of the king, who made him a “tabu-chief.” He married an Hawaiian woman of high priestly family. Nevertheless, “she had to kolo-kolo or crawl on her hands and knees whenever she entered the house of her husband, the tabu-chief.”
To Captain Beckley was entrusted the task of designing and making the first Hawaiian flag. The pattern flag, the first one made, was afterward “fashioned into a child’s frock and worn on special occasions by each one of the children in succession, and was long preserved as an heirloom in the family.”
This was apparently a compromise between the flags of the two antagonistic English-speaking nations. The Jack was retained to show the king’s friendship for England. The stripes were said to represent the red, white and blue of the American flag. They were eight in number, to represent the eight principal islands of the group. It was a combination of Hawaiian with European and American interests.
The old king was very proud of his beautiful new flag, and displayed it from his palace and over [[204]]the royal homes in other islands. It superseded the Russian flag on Kauai. He built a new coral rock fort, 300 × 400 feet dimensions, with walls twelve feet high and twenty feet thick. In it he placed forty guns, six, eight and twelve pounders, from which thundering salutes were fired on every possible occasion. He gave command of this fort to Captain Beckley, and over it flung his new flag to the breeze.
He sent his flag to China at the masthead of a ship he had purchased for the sandalwood trade. The captain of this ship, Alexander Adams, found trouble waiting for him at Canton, “because the Chinese authorities refused to recognise the Hawaiian flag, which had never before been seen in that port.” We have the statement on good authority that Captain Adams had to pay such heavy harbour dues that the report thereof to Ka-meha-meha taught the Hawaiian king one of the principles of civilised business, i.e., to charge fees for every boat entering his harbour. He lost about $3,000 in this voyage to China, “chiefly owing to the new flag.” The lesson learned concerning the harbour dues was probably worth all that was lost, although the king lived less than two years afterwards to enjoy his new source of income.