ion of two officers." This offensive note, in view of
Fritze's careful and honest bearing among so many other complications,
may be attributed to some misunderstanding. His small knowledge of
English perhaps failed him. But I cannot pass it by without remarking
how far too much it is the custom of German officials to fall into this
style. It may be witty, I am sure it is not wise. It may be sometimes
necessary to offend for a definite object, it can never be diplomatic to
offend gratuitously.

Becker was more explicit, although scarce less curt. And his defence may
be divided into two statements: first, that the _taumualua_ was
proceeding to land with a hostile purpose on Mulinuu; second, that the
shots complained of were fired by the Samoans. The second may be
dismissed with a laugh. Human nature has laws. And no men hitherto
discovered, on being suddenly challenged from the sea, would have turned
their backs upon the challenger and poured volleys on the friendly
shore. The first is not extremely credible, but merits examination. The
story of the recovered gun seems straightforward; it is supported by
much testimony, the diving operations on the reef seem to have been
watched from shore with curiosity; it is hard to suppose that it does
not roughly represent the fact. And yet if any part of it be true, the
whole of Becker's explanation falls to the ground. A boat which had
skirted the whole eastern coast of Mulinuu, and was already opposite a
wharf in Matafele, and still going west, might have been guilty on a
thousand points--there was one on which she was necessarily innocent;
she was necessarily innocent of proceeding on Mulinuu. Or suppose the
diving operations, and the native testimony, and Pelly's chart of the
boat's course, and the boat itself, to be all stages of some epidemic
hallucination or steps in a conspiracy--suppose even a second
_taumualua_ to have entered Apia bay after nightfall, and to have been
fired upon from Grevsmuehl's wharf in the full career of hostilities
against Mulinuu--suppose all this, and Becker is not helped. At the time
of the first fire, the boat was off Grevsmuehl's wharf. At the time of
the second (and that is the one complained of) she was off Carruthers's
wharf in Matautu. Was she still proceeding on Mulinuu? I trow not. The
danger to German property was no longer imminent, the shots had been
fired upon a very trifling provocation, the spirit implied was that of
designed disregar