A council of two Germans and two Samoans were to be invested with the right to make laws and impose taxes as might be "desirable for the common interest of the Samoan government and the German residents." The provisions of this council the king and vice-king were to sign blindfold.

And by a last hardship, the Germans, who received all the benefit, reserved a right to recede from the agreement on six months' notice; the Samoans, who suffered all the loss, were bound by it in perpetuity.

I can never believe that my friend Dr.Stuebel had a hand in drafting these proposals; I am only surprised he should have been a party to enforcing them, perhaps the chief error in these islands of a man who has made few.

And they were enforced with a rigour that seems injudicious.

The Samoans (according to their own account) were denied a copy of the document; they were certainly rated and threatened; their deliberation was treated as contumacy; two German war-ships lay in port, and it was hinted that these would shortly intervene.
Succeed in frightening a child, and he takes refuge in duplicity.
"Malietoa," one of the chiefs had written, "we know well we are in bondage to the great governments." It was now thought one tyrant might be better than three, and any one preferable to Germany.