By February it began to break in occasional gales. On February
10th a German brigantine was driven ashore. On the 14th the same
misfortune befell an American brigantine and a schooner. On both these
days, and again on the 7th March, the men-of-war must steam to their
anchors. And it was in this last month, the most dangerous of the
twelve, that man's animosities crowded that indentation of the reef with
costly, populous, and vulnerable ships.
I have shown, perhaps already at too great a length, how violently
passion ran upon the spot; how high this series of blunders and mishaps
had heated the resentment of the Germans against all other nationalities
and of all other nationalities against the Germans. But there was one
country beyond the borders of Samoa where the question had aroused a
scarce less angry sentiment. The breach of the Washington Congress, the
evidence of Sewall before a sub-committee on foreign relations, the
proposal to try Klein before a military court, and the rags of Captain
Hamilton's flag, had combined to stir the people of the States to an
unwonted fervour. Germany was for the time the abhorred of nations.
Germans in America publicly disowned the country of their birth. In
Honolulu, so near the scene of action, German and American young men fell
to blows in the street.
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