a fault in policy.  His own rude act proved in the result far more impolitic.  The hospital had now been open some two months, and de Coetlogon was still on friendly terms with Knappe, and he and his wife were engaged to dine with him that day.  By the morrow that was practically ended.  For the rape of the awnings had two results:  one, which was the fault of de Coetlogon, not at all of Hand, who could not have foreseen it; the other which it was his duty to have seen and prevented.  The first was this:  the de Coetlogons found themselves left with their wounded exposed to the inclemencies of the season; they must all be transported into the house and verandah; in the distress and pressure of this task, the dinner engagement was too long forgotten; and a note of excuse did not reach the German consulate before the table was set, and Knappe dressed to receive his visitors.  The second consequence was inevitable.  Captain Hand was scarce landed ere it became public (was “sofort bekannt,” writes Knappe) that he and the consul were in opposition.  All that had been gained by the demonstration at Laulii was thus immediately cast away; de Coetlogon’s prestige was lessened; and it must be said plainly that Hand did less than nothing to restore it.  Twice indeed he interfered, both times with success; and once, when his own person had been endangered, with vehemence; but during all the strange doings I have to narrate, he remained in close intimacy with the German consulate, and on one occasion may be said to have acted as its marshal.  After the worst is over, after Bismarck has told Knappe that “the protests of his English colleague were grounded,” that his own conduct “has not been good,” and that in any dispute which may arise he “will find himself in the wrong,” Knappe can still plead in his defence that Captain Hand “has always maintained friendly intercourse with the German authorities.”  Singular epitaph for an English sailor.  In this complicity on the part of Hand we may find the reason—­and I had almost said, the excuse—­of much that was excessive in the bearing of the unfortunate Knappe.

On the 11th December, Mataafa received twenty-eight thousand cartridges, brought into the country in salt-beef kegs by the British ship Richmond.  This not only sharpened the animosity between whites; following so closely on the German fizzle at Laulii, it raised a convulsion in the camp of Tamasese.  On the 13th Brandeis addressed to Knappe his famous and fatal letter.  I may not describe it as a letter of burning words, but it is plainly dictated by a burning heart.  Tamasese and his chiefs, he announces, are now sick of the business, and ready to make peace with Mataafa.  They began the war relying upon German help; they now see and say that “e faaalo Siamani i Peritania ma America, that Germany is subservient to England and the States.”  It is grimly given to be understood that the despatch is an ultimatum, and a last chance is being offered