The Act imposed the tax.

He has paid his taxes, although he thus contributes to the ways and means of his immediate rival.

The Act decreed the supreme court, and he sends his partisans to be tried at Mulinuu, although he thus places them (as I shall have occasion to show) in a position far from wholly safe.

From this literal conformity, in matters regulated, to the terms of the Berlin plenipotentiaries, we may plausibly infer, in regard to the rest, a no less exact observance of the famous and obscure "laws and customs of Samoa." But though it may be possible to attain, in the study, to some such adumbration of an understanding, it were plainly unfair to expect it of officials in the hurry of events.

Our two white officers have accordingly been no more perspicacious than was to be looked for, and I think they have sometimes been less wise.