The political significance of Mulinuu was great, but in a military sense the position had defects.  If it was difficult to carry, it was easy to blockade:  and to be hemmed in on that narrow finger of land were an inglorious posture for the monarch of Samoa.  The peninsula, besides, was scant of food and destitute of water.  Pressed by these considerations, Brandeis extended his lines till he had occupied the whole foreshore of Apia bay and the opposite point, Matautu.  His men were thus drawn out along some three nautical miles of irregular beach, everywhere with their backs to the sea, and without means of communication or mutual support except by water.  The extension led to fresh sorrows.  The Tamasese men quartered themselves in the houses of the absent men of the Vaimaunga.  Disputes arose with English and Americans.  Leary interposed in a loud voice of menace.  It was said the firm profited by the confusion to buttress up imperfect land claims; I am sure the other whites would not be far behind the firm.  Properties were fenced in, fences and houses were torn down, scuffles ensued.  The German example at Mulinuu was followed with laughable unanimity; wherever an Englishman or an American conceived himself to have a claim, he set up the emblem of his country; and the beach twinkled with the flags of nations.

All this, it will be observed, was going forward in that neutral territory, sanctified by treaty against the presence of armed Samoans.  The insurgents themselves looked on in wonder:  on the 4th, trembling to transgress against the great Powers, they had written for a delimitation of the Eleele Sa; and Becker, in conversation with the British consul, replied that he recognised none.  So long as Tamasese held the ground, this was expedient.  But suppose Tamasese worsted, it might prove awkward for the stores, mills, and offices of a great German firm, thus bared of shelter by the act of their own consul.

On the morning of the 9th September, just ten days after the death of Saifaleupolu, Mataafa, under the name of Malietoa To’oa Mataafa, was crowned king at Faleula.  On the 11th he wrote to the British and American consuls:  “Gentlemen, I write this letter to you two very humbly and entreatingly, on account of this difficulty that has come before me.  I desire to know from you two gentlemen the truth where the boundaries of the neutral territory are.  You will observe that I am now at Vaimoso [a step nearer the enemy], and I have stopped here until I knew what you say regarding the neutral territory.  I wish to know where I can go, and where the forbidden ground is, for I do not wish to go on any neutral territory, or on any foreigner’s property.  I do not want to offend any of the great Powers.  Another thing I would like.  Would it be possible for you three consuls to make Tamasese remove from German property? for I am in awe of going on German land.”  He must have received a reply embodying Becker’s renunciation of the principle, at once; for he broke camp the same day, and marched eastward through the bush behind Apia.