The King’s Birthday.
His Majesty King Lunalilo completed his thirty-ninth year on Saturday, the 31st ult. It is sad that in the best prime of years, his natal day should find him prostrate with disease. His previous anniversary was attended with so much joy. The people then rejoiced in the hope of a political savior. And we said then, in a paper setting forth the accession of King Lunalilo—”The lustre of a great name ennobles a whole people and a brilliant promise in a new Chief ought to quicken a nation. And here is a nation that need quickening. A new inspiration an awakened passion ought to give it a fresh start.”
The nation felt and still feels the new inspiration and the awakened passion, but it did not get the start that ought to have arisen out of the new circumstances in consequence of the control of the country by a spirit of weak conservatism that disappointed every hope that had been awakened by the new reign.
Surely we say all this, and have indulged in much previous criticism, more in a sorrow than in anger. We cannot and will not forget our own enthusiastic partisanship for him whom we recognized at the time as the true Prince. We cannot forget how just one short year ago, we with an ardent multitude hurraed with enthusiasm over a choice of a people. And will any doubt that if it were the will of Providence that Lunalilo should stand up once more before his people, as he did a little over one year ago, and be again full of life, but that we, with the people, would welcome the even as a restoration to life, and we with them would cherish new hopes in a King, snatched as it were, from the grave.
(Nuhou, 2/3/1874, p. 6)
Ka Nuhou Hawaii, Buke I, Helu 14, Aoao 6. Feberuari 3, 1874.
Filed under: Alii, Aloha Aina, Birthday, English Column Tagged: Lunalilo
