Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/288

268. The islanders rose under another leader, a romantic and Herculean youth named Mataafa, and war broke loose. The Germans, believing the situation in hand, let some of their ships go. The Americans believing otherwise dispatched Captain Leary, a belligerent and humorous Irishman, to the scene with the Adams.

The Germans now considered that they owned the islands, and they set out to quell "the rebels"—that is, the Samoans. They sailed down the coast to bombard the villages. Leary stuck by his guns. He refused to recognize either the Germans or Tamasese. He got between the Germans and their targets. He was certainly guilty of lèse majesté himself.

The affair got worse. The Germans tried to storm the Samoan camp and were repulsed with great loss. In a fury, they then declared martial law, with edicts prophetic of later days. "The crime of inciting German troops by any means, as, for instance, informing them of proclamations by the enemy, was punishable