Here is the short piece described in the last post:

The last that we have from “the Pacific slope” speaks of a practice that prevailed some years since at the Sandwich Islands, when it was the custom of the American consuls to be present at the trials of American sailors for breaches of the peace. The consul, at a trial before the sturdy old magistrate and native Governor Kekuanoa [Kekuanaoa], objected to the testimony of an islander on the grounds that it was false. The Governor replied, “Yes, I’m perfectly aware of that; but so was the sailor’s. Let us hear both sides, and then decide the matter.” A mere “question of veracity.”

(Harper’s New Monthly, 4/1871, p. 797)

Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Volume 42, Issue 251, Page 797. April 1871.