Malietoa was dethroned and deported, and Tamasese was installed as king, with a German, one Brandeis, as adviser. This provoked a counter-revolution led by Mataafa, and again general disorder prevailed throughout the group.
Much indignation was felt in the United States against Germany on account of its attitude in Samoa, and Congress made an appropriation of a half million of dollars for the protection of American interests. President Cleveland dispatched a squadron of the navy to Apia, which soon after its arrival was destroyed in the harbor by a hurricane, with the loss of a considerable number of its officers and men, an event which cast a gloom over the country, but gave increased interest to the question.
Secretary Bayard, by note to the minister at Berlin, made an energetic protest against the action of the German authorities in Samoa, taken with a view to obtain personal and commercial advantages and political supremacy, which was in direct violation of the agreement of the conference. On the other hand, he declared that the policy of the United States had been actuated not so much by the idea of any commercial interest, as by a benevolent desire to promote the development and secure the independence of one of the few remaining autonomous native governments in the Pacific Ocean. He passed in review the recent events in that quarter of the globe, showing how the European governments had appropriated, at their own will, the Polynesian islands, until almost the last vestige of native autonomy had been obliterated.
