THESE ANTIQUE LETTERS, journals, and agreements hold many a tale. In them sturdy New England trading vessels sail on long-forgotten business, each voyage an epic in itself. Therein are preserved, amid the timeless setting of tropic romance, the temples and taboos, internecine strife, and benevolent despotism of the Old Hawaii of Kamehameha the Great. There are glimpses of Russian America (Alaska), of the scattering of sleepy coastal settlements which then was California, the teeming waterfronts of Macao and Canton, and the chancellories of faraway St. Petersburg. Interwoven is the story of a man whose ambition exceeded his talents, but who for a few short months felt the thrill of power in an exotic land. The attempt by the German surgeon and adventurer, Georg Anton Schäffer (or Egor Nikolaevich Sheffer, as he was known in Russia), to engineer Russian annexation of the Hawaiian Islands has been described before. 1 However, there are gaps and errors in accounts of the affair, and very little has been known of Schäffer himself. Lack of materials has been the main cause of these deficiencies. The documents in this volume will answer many questions about schäffer and the events he took part in, and should add to knowledge of the international relations, trade, and way of life in the Pacific Basin in that period.