negotiating the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. According to journalist Helen Geracimos Chapin, that is the place and time period the two first became acquainted. Hawaiian historian Ralph Simpson Kuykendall pinpointed the same time frame, but placed their first meeting at San Francisco. The December 1, 1874 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle report of the king's trip attests to their first meeting being during a public reception held by Kalākaua in San Francisco's Grand Hotel. Moreno first approached the king as owner of three telegraph cable charter companies, regaling Kalākaua with tales of his global adventures. Moreno arrived in Honolulu, November 14, 1879, on the Chinese steamer Ho-Chung as the official representative of the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company, empowered to negotiate with the Kingdom of Hawaii. Among its regular line of business, the steamer ferried Chinese contract laborers to Hawaii and the United States; 451 laborers arrived with Moreno. American minister to Hawaii General described Moreno as a gregarious personality, who ingratiated himself through frequent visits to the palace. Kalākaua believed that Moreno held similar perspectives to his own on many issues. Moreno got Kalākaua to press the legislature on June 1, 1880 for an $18,000 annual trade subsidy for the company. The proposal was sent to a committee composed of George Washington Pilipō, Samuel Gardner Wilder, Godfrey Rhodes, John L. Kaulukou, and John K. Hanuna. The committee recommended against it on the basis that there was no market in China for Hawaiian exports, and that providing a subsidy might result in the reverse effect of Chinese imports glutting the Hawaiian market. The legislature concurred with the recommendation of the committee. In spite of the expiration of the telegraph cable legislation, Moreno managed to convince Kalākaua and the legislature in the first week of July, to pass a resolution guaranteeing him a $1,000,000 bonus in gold coins upon completion of the cable. Trying to make himself look more influential than he was, Moreno claimed to be a close associate of James A. Garfield, who was at that time a candidate (and subsequent winner) in the United States presidential election. Comly asked Garfield directly about the alleged relation, with Garfield issuing a strong denial. It was only through legislative intervention by Wilder that the resolution was defeated. His efforts at overturning Hawaii's stringent opium laws, and acquiring a monopoly on the manufacture and distribution of the drug for trafficking in