Liliuokalani, Lydia Kamakaeha Kaolamalii, Queen of Hawaii

Autograph letter signed ("Liliuokalani"), 2 pages on one leaf (10 3/4 x 8 1/4 in.; 273 x 210 mm), Kealohilani, Waikiki, 5 August 1904, to Joseph Oliver Carter, complaining that she is not being given her full allowance of water for her estate; rust spot in upper left corner from a paperclip, one short marginal tear slightly affecting one word.

Still embattled over the issue of water for her Waikiki estate and Liliuokalani writes to Carter:  "I wish to call to your notice the agreement that I made with the government some time early in my reign, or thereabouts of a well (artesian) which was made or dug on my land ...and  for which I sold a portion of my land to the government with the understanding that I should receive 1/3 or a certain portion of the water."

Unfortunately, Liliuokalani no longer has a copy of the agreement which she believes was lost when her home on Washington Place in Honolulu had been ransacked in an attempt to uncover arms. During the counterrevolution of 1895, a small arsenal of arms and dynamite bombs had been found at her home. " I think they must have the agreement on their books. For one I have nothing to show ever since the time when Hapaki Judd came to look for my papers with his Portuguese agreed to search my house. And on my return found everything scattered all over the house. They were looking for arms and found none."

Liliuokalani explains how she feels she has not only been cheated out of the water but out of money she was forced to pay the water works department, and that this was engineered to her great annoyance by the closing of the well. "Now the well water was pronounced brackish and closed and since then I have paid money to the government for the use of water and I don’t think I ought to have paid anything."

Fed up with the ongoing problem of the water agreement, she emphatically writes Carter: " ... I want to say that I want my full allowance of water. I don’t think I ought to pay any water rates for all my Waikiki properties. The water may have been brackish to drink, but it answered all my purposes for irrigating and washing. From the main pipe we have a very small stream and I want a good strong flow of water as soon as possible or I must have my portion of water from the well. And I think they must refund to me all the monies that have been paid from the time they closed the well and as I was interested in the opening of the well I should have been consulted in the closing of the well."