Had it so remained, it would still have been a cut-throat quarrel.

But when the consulate appeared to be concerned, when the war-ships of the German Empire were thought to fetch and carry for the firm, the rage of the independent traders broke beyond restraint.

And, largely from the national touchiness and the intemperate speech of German clerks, this scramble among dollar-hunters assumed the appearance of an inter-racial war.
The firm, with the indomitable Weber at its head and the consulate at its back--there has been the chief enemy at Samoa.

No English reader can fail to be reminded of John Company; and if the Germans appear to have been not so successful, we can only wonder that our own blunders and brutalities were less severely punished.

Even on the field of Samoa, though German faults and aggressors make up the burthen of my story, they have been nowise alone.