Besides, your proclamation will be disregarded." De Coetlogon of course
issued his proclamation at once, Knappe retorted with another, and night
closed on the first stage of this insane collision. I hear the German
consul was on this day prostrated with fever; charity at least must
suppose him hardly answerable for his language.
Early on the 21st, Mr. Mansfield Gallien, a passing traveller, was seized
in his berth on board the _Richmond_, and carried, half-dressed, on board
a German war-ship. His offence was, in the circumstances and after the
proclamation, substantial. He had gone the day before, in the spirit of
a tourist to Mataafa's camp, had spoken with the king, and had even
recommended him an appeal to Sir George Grey. Fritze, I gather, had been
long uneasy; this arrest on board a British ship fitted the measure.
Doubtless, as he had written long before, the consul alone was
responsible "on the legal side"; but the captain began to ask himself,
"What next?"--telegraphed direct home for instructions, "Is arrest of
foreigners on foreign vessels legal?"--and was ready, at a word from
Captain Hand, to discharge his dangerous prisoner. The word in question
(so the story goes) was not without a kind of wit.
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