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 with the leading German firm, and with the approval of the American consul was deported in a British man-of-war, and thus ended his career as premier.

The disorder in Samoa continuing, the chiefs looked to some foreign power to give them a stable government. A deputation went in 1877 to Fiji to ask support from the British authorities there, but without success. The same year they dispatched an envoy to Washington to seek a protectorate from the United States. The protectorate was declined, but Secretary Evarts made a commercial treaty with him in 1878, which was afterwards ratified by the chiefs, and in which the use of Pago Pago as a naval station was secured. The following year commercial treaties with the chiefs were made by Germany and Great Britain. Thus by these three powers was the independence of Samoa recognized. The treaties were followed by a convention the same year between the three powers, represented by their consuls, and the king of Samoa, whereby a municipal government, under control of the three consuls, was provided for Apia, the chief town of the islands.

The next few years were full of wrangling between the consuls of the three treaty powers, and of discord, and sometimes of open war, between the recognized king, Malietoa, and the rival aspirants, Tamasese and