set scene of the
coronation, Mataafa was absent, and Tamasese stood in his place. Malietoa
was to be deposed for a piece of solemn and offensive trickery, and the
man selected to replace him was his sole partner and accomplice in the
act. For so strange a choice, good ground must have existed; but it
remains conjectural: some supposing Mataafa scratched as too independent;
others that Tamasese had indeed betrayed Laupepa, and his new advancement
was the price of his treachery.

So these two chiefs began to change places like the scales of a balance,
one down, the other up. Tamasese raised his flag (Jan. 28th, 1886) in
Leulumoenga, chief place of his own province of Aana, usurped the style
of king, and began to collect and arm a force. Weber, by the admission
of Stuebel, was in the market supplying him with weapons; so were the
Americans; so, but for our salutary British law, would have been the
British; for wherever there is a sound of battle, there will the traders
be gathered together selling arms. A little longer, and we find Tamasese
visited and addressed as king and majesty by a German commodore.
Meanwhile, for the unhappy Malietoa, the road led downward. He was
refused a bodyguard. He was turned out of Mulinuu, the seat of his
royalty, on a land claim of Weber's, fled across the Mulivai, and "had
the coolness" (German expression) to hoist his flag in Apia. He was
asked "in the most polite manner," says the same account--"in the most
delicate manner in the world," a reader of Marryat might be tempted to
amend the phrase,--to strike his flag in his own capital; and on his
"refusal to accede to this request," Dr. Stuebel appeared himself with
ten men and an officer from the cruiser _Albatross_; a sailor climbed
into the tree and brought down the flag of Samoa, which was carefully
folded, and sent, "in the most polite manner," to its owner. The consuls
of England and the States were there (the excellent gentlemen!) to
protest. Last, and yet more explicit, the German commodore who visited
the be-titled Tamasese, addressed the king--we may surely say the late
king--as "the High Chief Malietoa."

Had he no party, then? At that time, it is probable, he might have
called some five-sevenths of Samoa to his standard. And yet he sat
there, helpless monarch, like a fowl trussed for roasting. The blame
lies with himself, because he was a helpless creature; it lies also with
England and the States. Their agents on