This action was brought in the supreme court of the territory of Hawaii to recover from the territory the sum of $15,000 as the alternative of the reconveyance of certain property conveyed by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions in 1849 to the Hawaiian government, for the nonfulfilment of the conditions upon which the property was conveyed. A demurrer was sustained to the petition and thereupon this appeal was taken.
The following is an outline of the principal facts alleged:
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, hereinafter called the American Board, for many years prior to 1850 had conducted and maintained a Protestant mission in the Hawaiian Islands, and, as an essential part of its missionary work, carried on many schools. Its most notable educational work was centered in a school established in 1831 at Lahainaluna, on the Island of Maui, where it possessed a large tract of land. This school and the premises occupied by it were set off by the chiefs to the protestant mission in 1835. On the building and other improvements many thousands of dollars were expended, and the school had, in 1850, become a most important factor in the life and progress of the Hawaiian people, and was recognized as the leading educational institution in the kingdom.
The course of instruction comprised not only the usual topics belonging to secular learning, but included also direct religious teaching and training in the doctrines represented by the mission.
These facts were established before the board of commissioners to quiet land titles, to which the claim of the American Board to Lahainaluna, as an established part of its system, was duly presented and recognized, and the board of commissioners adjudged as follows: 'Lahainaluna, part 5, section 2, claim relinquished before the land commission in consequence of an after-arrangement having been entered into with the Hawaiian government by the mission. Vol. 3 L. C. Award, pp. 143 et seq., upon the final confirmation which was duly made to the said A. B. C. F. M. all the lands claimed were awarded, 'with the exception of section 2, Lahainaluna, which had been withdrawn." The 'after-arrangement' referred to in the records of the land commissioners was as follows:
'Because of financial stress, and also feeling that the school, which had really become a national institution, should be conducted by the government at its own expense, in April, 1849, the mission, at its general mission held in Honolulu, voted as follows: 'To make over this seminary to the government, it being understood that it is to be conducted on the same principles as heretofore.'
'An offer was thereupon made to the government in pursuance to this vote of the mission to make over the school to the government on condition that it should 'be continued at its expense as an institution for the cultivation of sound literature and solid science, and further, that it shall not teach or allow to be taught any religious tenet or doctrine contrary to those heretofore inculcated by the mission, a summary of which will be found in the confession of faith herewith inclosed, and that, in case of the nonfulfilment or violation of the conditions upon which this transfer is made by the said government, the whole property hereby transferred, hereinbefore specified, together with any additions of improvements, should revert to the said mission."
This offer as made was not accepted by the government, but it instread submitted a counter offer to the mission, by which it offered to take over the school on the conditions made in the mission's original offer, but 'provided that, in case of the nonfulfilment on the part of this government of the conditions specified in the letter of the above-named gentlemen, it shall be optional with this government to allow the institution, with all additions and improvements which may have been made upon the premises and all rights and privileges connected therewith, to revert to the said mission, to be held in behalf of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, or to pay the sum of $15,000; provided also that, in case this government shall find it expedient to divert this establishment to other purposes than those of education, it shall be at liberty to do so, on condition that it sustain an institution of like character and on similar principles in some other place on the island, or pay the sum of $15,000 to said mission in behalf of the Mission Board in Boston.'