c, it forms, for ten or
eleven months out of the twelve, a safe if hardly a commodious port. The
ill-found island traders ride there with their insufficient moorings the
year through, and discharge, and are loaded, without apprehension. Of
danger, when it comes, the glass gives timely warning; and that any
modern war-ship, furnished with the power of steam, should have been lost
in Apia, belongs not so much to nautical as to political history.

The weather throughout all that winter (the turbulent summer of the
islands) was unusually fine, and the circumstance had been commented on
as providential, when so many Samoans were lying on their weapons in the
bush. By February it began to break in occasional gales. On February
10th a German brigantine was driven ashore. On the 14th the same
misfortune befell an American brigantine and a schooner. On both these
days, and again on the 7th March, the men-of-war must steam to their
anchors. And it was in this last month, the most dangerous of the
twelve, that man's animosities crowded that indentation of the reef with
costly, populous, and vulnerable ships.

I have shown, perhaps already at too great a length, how violently
passion ran upon the spot; how high this series of blunders and mishaps
had heated the resentment of the Germans against all other nationalities
and of all other nationalities against the Germans. But there was one
country beyond the borders of Samoa where the question had aroused a
scarce less angry sentiment. The breach of the Washington Congress, the
evidence of Sewall before a sub-committee on foreign relations, the
proposal to try Klein before a military court, and the rags of Captain
Hamilton's flag, had combined to stir the people of the States to an
unwonted fervour. Germany was for the time the abhorred of nations.
Germans in America publicly disowned the country of their birth. In
Honolulu, so near the scene of action, German and American young men fell
to blows in the street. In the same city, from no traceable source, and
upon no possible authority, there arose a rumour of tragic news to arrive
by the next occasion, that the _Nipsic_ had opened fire on the _Adler_,
and the _Adler_ had sunk her on the first reply. Punctually on the day
appointed, the news came; and the two nations, instead of being plunged
into war, could only mingle tears over the loss of heroes.

By the second week in March three American ships were in Apia bay,--the