to appear before the Chief Justice in the Supreme
Court. I have seen the summons, and the summons was the first and last
of this State trial. The proceeding, instituted in an hour of temper,
was, in a moment of reaction, allowed to drop.

About the same date a final blow befell the Government of Mulinuu. Let
me remind you, sir, of the situation. The funds of the municipality had
been suddenly seized, on what appeared a collusive judgment, by the
bankrupt Government of Mulinuu. The paper, the organ of opposition, was
bought by a man of straw; and it was found the purchase-money had been
paid in rouleaux from the Government safes. The Government consisted of
two men. One, the President and treasurer, had a ready means to clear
himself and dispose for ever of the scandal--that means, apart from any
scandal, was his mere, immediate duty,--viz., to have his balance
verified. And he has refused to do so, and he still refuses. But the
other, though he sits abstruse, must not think to escape his share of
blame. He holds a high situation; he is our chief magistrate, he has
heard this miserable tale of the rouleaux, at which the Consuls looked
so black, and why has he done nothing? When he found that the case
against himself and his colleague had gone to the three Powers a little
of the suddenest, he could launch summonses (which it seems he was
afterwards glad to disavow) against Messrs. Cooper and Carruthers. But
then, when the whole island murmured--then, when a large sum which could
be traced to the Government treasuries was found figuring in the hands
of a man of straw--where were his thunderbolts then? For more than a
month the scandal has hung black about his colleague; for more than a
month he has sat inert and silent; for more than a month, in
consequence, the last spark of trust in him has quite died out.

In was in these circumstances that the Government of Mulinuu approached
the municipal council with a proposal to levy fresh taxes from the
whites. It was in these circumstances that the municipal council
answered, No. Public works have ceased, the destination of public moneys
is kept secret, and the municipal council resolved to stop supplies.

At this, it seems, the Government awoke to a sense of their position.
The natives had long ceased to pay them; now the whites had followed
suit. Destitution had succeeded to embarrassment. And they made haste to
join with themselves another who did not share in their unpopular