In the autumn of 1874 it was announced that Fiji had been formally annexed by Great Britain: in other words, that her Majesty’s Government had finally decided to accept the offer of cession of the group repeatedly made by the highest chiefs of Fiji. To this course they were impelled chiefly by the conviction of their own utter inability to cope with certain unscrupulous white men, who had here established a footing beyond reach of English law, and who, to promote their own selfish schemes, did not scruple, by every means in their power, to foster the jealousies of the chiefs, and so to keep up the bloody intertribal wars by which the lands were laid waste, and the population decimated. In the prolonged struggle for power, two great chiefs rose pre-eminent—namely, Maafu, a powerful Tongan chief, who ruled supreme in one portion of the group; and Thakombau, who (at the instigation of the foreigners who had formed themselves into a government of which he was the nominal head) had been formally crowned as Tui Viti—_i.e._, King of Fiji. The position thus assumed by Thakombau proved, however, untenable. An adverse party of white men opposed every measure which the Government strove to enforce; and at length this nominal king, then upwards of seventy years of age, wearied by these unprofitable contentions, persuaded the other great chiefs to crave the protection of England’s Queen. Their petition was at first rejected; but, when repeated as an act of absolute and unconditional cession, it was deemed wise to accept it. Sir Hercules Robinson, G.C.M.G., Governor of New South Wales, was deputed by the Home Government to visit the group in person. Accordingly, on 12th September 1874, he sailed from Sydney in H.M.S. Pearl, Commodore Goodenough, and arrived in Levuka (the headquarters of the white population of Fiji) on the 23d inst. Two days later he had a formal interview with Thakombau, in which he explained her Majesty’s willingness to accept the responsibility, and to endeavour to exercise her authority in such a manner as should best secure the prosperity and happiness of the people; adding, that such conditions as had been at first attached would render impracticable the proper government of the country. To this Thakombau replied— “The Queen is right; conditions are not chief-like. I was myself from the first opposed to them, but was overruled. If I give a chief a canoe, and he knows that I expect something from him, I do not say, ‘I give you this canoe on condition of your only sailing it on certain days, of your not letting such and such a man on to it, or of your only using a particular kind of rope with it;’ but I give him the canoe right out, and trust to his generosity and good faith to make me the return which he knows I expect. If I were to attach conditions, he would say, ‘I do not care to be bothered with your canoe; keep it yourself.’ “Why should we have any anxiety about the future? What is the future? Britain.