page_title: William Richards (Hawaii)
section_title: Diplomat
hierarchical_section_title: William Richards (Hawaii) / Diplomat
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of a flier printed in 1873 for the 30th anniversary of the Anglo-Franco Proclamation of November 28, 1843,in which Britain and France recognized the Kingdom of Hawaii as an independent nation.
context_page_description: William Richards was a missionary and politician in the Kingdom of Hawaii.
context_section_description: April 8, 1842 Richards was appointed special envoy to U.S. and Great Britain with native Hawaiian Timothy Haʻalilio. Richards had sent a proposed treaty to the U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Butler in 1838, but the letter was quietly filed away. Missionary doctor Gerrit P. Judd replaced Richards as government translator, and continued the American influence on Hawaiian government. Judd resigned from the mission and also became the first Finance minister, effectively one of the most powerful positions in the kingdom.
  The envoys left on July 18, 1842, arriving in Washington D.C. December 5. Richards looked up his former congressman Caleb Cushing. After a week waiting to see Daniel Webster who was the U.S. Secretary of State, they had their appointment on December 7. Webster had not even read their letter. When Richards mentioned they would renew their status as a British Protectorate, Webster indicated it was President John Tyler's policy to prevent any restrictions of U.S. control in the Pacific, but did not promise anything specific.
  Meanwhile, Richard Charlton had left Hawaii to return to London, appointing Alexander Simpson to take his place. Charlton had met with officers of the British Pacific fleet in Mexico, where he reported that French and Americans were going to take over the islands unless the British acted soon.
  Richards and Haʻalilio then went to London and requested a visit with
  Lord Aberdeen who was British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In February 1843 Richards, Sir George Simpson and Haʻalilio visited King Leopold I of Belgium. The American Consul to Hawaii, Peter A. Brinsmade, had negotiated a contract for Belgian colonization of Hawaii. On March 17, 1843 they met François Guizot who was the French Foreign Minister. Both verbally accepted Hawaiian independence, and so did Lord Aberdeen on another visit on March 25. Confident in their success, Sir George Simpson returned to Canada, thinking Richards and Haʻalilo could wrap up the details through April and May 1843.
  Richards got his first hint of trouble reading a Paris newspaper account of how a British frigate HMS Carysfort, under the command of Lord George Paulet, captured the Hawaiian islands after threatening a military attack the previous February.
  Using a coffin in the Royal mausoleum as a desk, Judd prepared letters for Richards and Haʻalilio, secretly sending them out with American merchant James F.B. Marshall. Marshall spread the news in the American press, and met June 4 with fellow Bostonians such as Daniel Webster and Henry A. Peirce (business partner and future minister to Hawaii). Webster gave him letters for Edward Everett who was the American minister to Great Britain.
  On June 30, 1843 Marshall arrived with the letters of Judd, while Richards and Haʻalilo were in Paris. Seven days earlier Alexander Simpson had arrived with letters presenting Paulet's case at the British the Foreign office. Paulet claimed that the islands were voluntarily ceded. This confused and embarrassed the British government.
  The British agreed to restore the flag, but continued to negotiate the terms. Meanwhile, Admiral Richard Darton Thomas had already sailed to Honolulu and held a ceremony on July 31 turning the country back to Kamehameha III. Finally on November 13, 1843 Lord Aberdeen and the French ambassador Louis Saint-Aulaire agreed on terms and signed an agreement on November 28. It was a joint declaration, not a treaty, so did not clarify status. Charlton was fired and William Miller (1795–1861) was appointed the new British consul to investigate Charlton's land claims. 
  When news of the treaty got back to the islands, November 28 became a holiday known as Lā Kūʻokoʻa o Hawaiʻi Nei ("beloved Hawaii independence day").
  On their way back, the new American Secretary of State John C. Calhoun was invited to also sign the agreement, but said he would wait for a treaty that could be ratified by the Senate.
  The USA appointed a diplomatic commissioner in 1843, but would not officially recognize the Kingdom until 1849.
  Timothy Haʻalilio's health declined, an
caption: Flier for 30th anniversary celebration of the 1843 treaty
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