While the Samoan affair seemed an accidental happening, there was taking shape in the Pacific another episode which had a longer history and was more significant of the expansion of American interests in that ocean. Indeed, with the Pacific coast line of the United States, with the superb harbors of San Francisco, Portland, and Puget Sound, and with Alaska stretching its finger tips almost to Asia, even Blaine could not resist the lure of the East, though he endeavored to reconcile American traditions of isolation with oceanic expansion. Of all the Pacific archipelagoes, the Hawaiian Islands lie nearest to the shores of the United States. Although they had been discovered to the European world by the great English explorer, Captain Cook, their intercourse had, for geographic reasons, always been chiefly with the United States. Whalers continually resorted to them for supplies. Their natives shipped on American vessels and came in numbers to California in early gold-mining days. American missionaries attained their most striking success in the Hawaiian Islands and not only converted the majority of the natives but assisted the successive kings in their government. The descendants of these missionaries continued to live on the islands and became the nucleus of a white population which waxed rich and powerful by the abundant production of sugar cane on that volcanic soil. In view of this tangible evidence of intimacy on the part of the United States with the Hawaiian Islands, Webster in 1842 brought them within the scope of the Monroe Doctrine by declaring that European powers must not interfere with their government. Marcy, Secretary of State, framed a treaty of annexation in 1853, but the Hawaiian Government withdrew its assent. Twenty years later Secretary Fish wrote: "There seems to be a strong desire on the part of many persons in the islands, representing large interests and great wealth, to become annexed to the United States and while there are, as I have already said, many and influential persons in the country who question the policy of any insular acquisition, perhaps even any extension of territorial limits, there are also those of influence and wise foresight who see a future that must extend the jurisdiction and the limits of this nation, and that will require a resting spot in the mid-ocean, between the Pacific coast and the vast domains of Asia, which are now opening to commerce, and Christian civilization."