brought to trial,
but dismissed with a caution. However, at the end of 1916, he and
his two subordinates were again brought up on a serious charge and
sentenced on the testimony of their chief lieutenant, Smith, who
turned State's evidence[*] against them, to a term of imprisonment.

[Footnote *: For the benefit of the reader not familiar with American
legal procedure, it should be explained that in cases where several
individuals are charged in common with an offence, any one of them
may be assured of a pardon if he turns State's evidence and informs
against his associates. This course of action, reprehensible as
it undoubtedly is, from a moral point of view, has the advantage
of facilitating the task of police spies!]

All three resigned from their posts and lodged an appeal, but were
again found guilty in the second instance, after America had entered
the war. Consul-General Bopp and his colleagues if they had in
reality committed the offences of which they were accused, were
certainly actuated in no way by the Embassy or any high authorities,
but must be held solely and entirely responsible for the course
they adopted. In his reports to me, Bopp invariably asserted his
innocence, and I am rather inclined to believe that he really fell
into one of the traps which the Allied Secret Service were always
setting for our officials in America.

According to common report, Consul-General Bopp, Schack and von
Brinken later underwent yet a further term of imprisonment for
their complicity in the so-called Indian conspiracy. I am quite
certain that nothing was ever heard of this affair until after
the American declaration of war; then, however, newspaper reports
were shown me, the effect that in the year of 1916 an attempt had
been made by the Indian Nationalists in San Francisco, with German
co-operation, to bring about an armed rising in British India--an
absolute "wild-goose chase," which, of course, came to nothing. It
was asserted in this connection that a cargo of arms and ammunition
on board the small schooner _Annie Larsen_, and destined for our
forces in German East Africa, was, in reality, dispatched to India
via Java and Siam; but no proofs were brought forward in support
of this statement. In connection with this design, four persons
were sentenced at Chicago, in October, 1917, and ten (according to
Bielaski twenty-nine in all) at San Francisco, in August, 1918, to
long terms of imprisonment, for having "illega