thersoever he went, he must approach no German
property nor so much as any village where there was a German trader. By
five o'clock on the morrow, if he were not gone, Knappe would turn upon
him "the attention of the man-of-war" and inflict a fine. The same
evening, November 14th, Knappe went on board the _Adler_, which began to
get up steam.

Three months before, such direct intervention on the part of Germany
would have passed almost without protest; but the hour was now gone by.
Becker's conduct, equally timid and rash, equally inconclusive and
offensive, had forced the other nations into a strong feeling of common
interest with Mataafa. Even had the German demands been moderate, de
Coetlogon could not have forgotten the night of the _taumualua_, nor how
Mataafa had relinquished, at his request, the attack upon the German
quarter. Blacklock, with his driver of a captain at his elbow, was not
likely to lag behind. And Mataafa having communicated Knappe's letter,
the example of the Germans was on all hands exactly followed; the consuls
hastened on board their respective war-ships, and these began to get up
steam. About midnight, in a pouring rain, Pelly communicated to Fritze
his intention to follow him and protect British interests; and Knappe
replied that he would come on board the _Lizard_ and see de Coetlogon
personally. It was deep in the small hours, and de Coetlogon had been
long asleep, when he was wakened to receive his colleague; but he started
up with an old soldier's readiness. The conference was long. De
Coetlogon protested, as he did afterwards in writing, against Knappe's
claim: the Samoans were in a state of war; they had territorial rights;
it was monstrous to prevent them from entering one of their own villages
because a German trader kept the store; and in case property suffered, a
claim for compensation was the proper remedy. Knappe argued that this
was a question between Germans and Samoans, in which de Coetlogon had
nothing to see; and that he must protect German property according to his
instructions. To which de Coetlogon replied that he was himself in the
same attitude to the property of the British; that he understood Knappe
to be intending hostilities against Laulii; that Laulii was mortgaged to
the MacArthurs; that its crops were accordingly British property; and
that, while he was ever willing to recognise the territorial rights of
the Samoans, he must prevent that property from b