THE UNITED STATES AND SAMOA 223 



Consul had demanded of Malietoa that he should warn his 

 subjects more positively against midnight raids upon the 

 German fruit trees. A number of light-fingered citizens had 

 been caught in the act of making away with an armful of green 

 cocoanuts or a bunch of bananas; they had been duly tried 

 and sentenced to imprisonment, but it was discovered by the 

 watchful Weber, the head of the firm, that the back door of 

 the jail was open; Weber's convicts were not paying the full 

 penalty of their misdemeanors. In October, 1884, the German 

 Consul addressed a letter to King Malietoa, calling his atten- 

 tion to this lapse of justice, and suggested to him in no 

 uncertain language that a continuation of such a condition 

 of affairs would be accepted as an insult to the German Gov- 

 ernment. The Arcadian simplicity of Samoan life did not 

 develop that fineness of discrimination between meum and 

 tuum that the Teutonic representative in Apia believed 

 should be observed. The king no doubt felt the delicacy of 

 his position; it required more tact than Malietoa possessed 

 to serve two masters at the same time. He attempted to 

 reform his judiciary at a ruinous expense of popularity among 

 his subjects, but his reforms were not sufficiently complete 

 to meet the requirements of the exacting Germans; so Mr. 

 Weber of the firm decided to constitute himself both judge 

 and jailer of the realm. In the absence of the German Con- 

 sul he arranged for a treaty between the Berlin and the 

 Samoan governments which would virtually place the man- 

 agement of native affairs into his own hands. This docu- 

 ment he placed before the astonished Malietoa, with a demand 

 that he sign it blindfolded, or, to put it more clearly, before 

 its provisions could become known to other foreigners in 

 Apia. Some German men-of-war were in the harbor. The 

 unfortunate monarch was at his wits' end. He hastily ap- 

 pealed to the representatives of England and the United 

 States for protection; and to the queen of England he 

 despatched a formal application for immediate annexation. 

 The Germans in Apia were outraged by this display of inde- 

 pendence on the part of the king; they pressed him the 

 harder to sign the paper, and demanded an abject apology for 



