Unsuccessful in his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi for the Russian-American Company, Georg Anton Schäffer is forced to admit defeat and leave Kauaʻi.

The Schäffer affair was a diplomatic episode instigated in 1815 by Georg Anton Schäffer who attempted to seize the Kingdom of Hawaii for the Russian Empire. After two years, his scheme failed and he returned to Germany.

The Hawaiian Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, was an archipelagic country from 1795 to 1893, which eventually encompassed all of the inhabited Hawaiian Islands. It was established in 1795 when Kamehameha I, then Aliʻi nui of Hawaii, conquered the islands of Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lānaʻi, and unified them under one government. In 1810, the Hawaiian Islands were fully unified when the islands of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau voluntarily joined the Hawaiian Kingdom. Two major dynastic families ruled the kingdom, the House of Kamehameha and the House of Kalākaua.

The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the United American Company. Emperor Paul I of Russia chartered the company in the Ukase of 1799. It had the mission of establishing new settlements in Russian America, conducting trade with natives, and carrying out an expanded colonization program.

Georg Anton Schäffer was a German physician in the employ of the Russian–American Company who attempted to conquer Hawaii for the Company and, ultimately, the Russian Empire. The bloodless Schäffer affair (1815–1817) or the Hawaiian spectacular, as it was called by contemporary Russians, became a significant financial blunder for the Company.