152 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XV 



little spoken of, but really at the bottom of the main trou 

 ble, were missionaries, English Wesley ans on one side, 

 and French Roman Catholics on the other, each desir 

 ing to save the souls of the natives, no matter at what 

 sacrifice of their bodies. 



This tea-pot soon began to boil violently. The old king 

 having died, the question arose as to the succession. The 

 power of appointing the successor having been in the most 

 clear and definite terms bestowed by the treaty upon the 

 chief justice, he named for the position Malietoa Tanu, a 

 young chieftain who had been induced to call himself a 

 Protestant; but on the other side was Mataafa, an old 

 chief who years before had made much trouble, had been 

 especially obnoxious to the Germans, and had been ban 

 ished, but had been recently allowed to return on his tak 

 ing oath that he would abstain from all political action, 

 and would be true to his allegiance to the Malietoan kings. 

 He had been induced to call himself a Catholic. 



But hardly had he returned when, having apparently 

 been absolved from his oath, he became the leader of a 

 political party and insisted on his right to the kingship. 



The result was a petty civil war which cost many lives. 

 Nor was this all. A drunken Swiss having one day 

 amused himself by breaking the windows of the American 

 chief justice s court and no effective punishment hav 

 ing been administered by the German president of Apia, 

 the Yankee chief justice took the matter into his own 

 hands, and this Little Pedlington business set in motion 

 sensation-mongers throughout the world. They exerted 

 themselves to persuade the universe that war might, and 

 indeed ought to, result between the three great nations 

 concerned. On the arrival of the American Admiral 

 Kautz, he simply and naturally supported the decree 

 which the chief justice had made, in strict accordance 

 with the treaty of Berlin, and was finally obliged to fire 

 upon the insurgents. Now came a newspaper carnival: 

 screams of wrath from the sensation press of Germany 

 and yells of defiance from the sensation press of the 

 United States. 



