Encountering European powers in the Pacific, with no apparent hesitation though without any general intent, the United States entered into cooperative agreements with them relating to the native governments which it would never have thought proper or possible in other parts of the world.

The United States seemed to be evolving a new policy for the protection of its interests in the Pacific.

This first clash with the rising colonial power of Germany has an added interest because it revealed a fundamental similarity in colonial policy between the United States and Great Britain, even though they were prone to quarrel when adjusting Anglo-American relations.
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.