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Convict Importation in the Pacific - Arrival of a Stranger - Speculation in a Smithy - A Pool of Blood - Double Murder - Watching his Eyes - Discovery of Plunder - German Difficulties again - Partial Confession - False Accusation - Murderer commits Suicide - A Recidiviste - Four Year Labour - Samoan Petition for my Stay - Official Leave taking - Malietoa's Farewell Banquet - Farewell Dinner a Apia.

SHORTLY before my relief a tragic circumstance occurred, which tends to illustrate in the very highest degree the danger to all the Colonies and settlement of the Pacific, caused by the introduction in their midst of irreclaimable criminals, such as the convicts the French send out to New Caledonia. This makes one of the many instances which have been brought to notice to justify the action of the Australian Colonies in protesting against the further importation of such people. It was a brutal and revolting murder.

About four months before the event took place, a sinister-looking stranger had arrived from Fiji on the look-out for something to do. He had neither money nor recommendation, and beyond his having been last in Fiji, nothing further could be ascertained of him but he gave himself out to be a Frenchman. Wandering about in search of work as a blacksmith, he made the acquaintance of a Frenchman named St. Foy, an old resident in Apia, carrying on a business as a sort of general merchant, and who had the reputation of being a miser, and of keeping a considerable amount of money concealed about the premises.

This man occupied a good-sized house, built with the upper stories projecting considerably over the lower one, making a sort of a veranda, and it was on this overhanging part that he and a Samoan woman, the only other human being living in the house, usually slept. In course of time the stranger persuaded St. Foy to build him a smithy close to his own house, and start him in the trade upon certain terms; and from being next door and continually associating with him, both speaking the same language, the new rnan had every opportunity of becoming intimately acquainted with the position of things in the big house, and all the usual movements of his patron.

One morning it was observed that the Frenchman had not opened his door, nor had the Samoan woman been seen going to the cook-house to light her fire. As in all small communities, this little departure from a generally observed practice was taken notice of by the neighbours, who for some time restrained their curiosity, but eventually went to the house to inquire what was the matter. They were rewarded with the sight of a pool of blood on the ground underneath the projection of the house; and whilst breathlessly speculating upon how that came there, they were joined by the smith, who appeared to be as much astonished as the rest, but who soon discovered the source of the horrible pool, pointing out that it had dripped through the cracks of the boards just above their heads.

On the arrival of the Magistrate the house was entered, and upstairs, on the floor, exactly on the spot where they usually slept, lay, in hideous pools of gore, with faces hacked to pieces in the most revolting manner, the bodies of St. Foy and the woman.

In the next room a chest was found with the lock burst, still containing three bags of dollars; but no one knowing how many the murdered man originally had, no one could say whether any had been taken out. One thing, however, was very evident, that whoever burst open the box was a man skilled in the use of tools.

Of course this created an immense excitement and alarm, and nowhere more so than amongst the Samoans, who were loud in averring that the nature of the murder was such as proclaimed it to be no native work. We well knew that if it were Samoan work it would soon leak out, and did not do much but keep a good watch all round and offer a reward for the murderer.

Our idea proved correct, for soon the woman with whom the blacksmith lived hinted that she could give curious evidence about the doings of her companion on the night of the murder, which were of so suspicious a nature that the Magistrate arrested him. The man was detained while inquiries were being vigorously pushed in all directions, but with no avail, until one day the prisoner having been taken down to his house under escort to get a change of clothes, was observed to cast sharp glances in the direction of an old ash-heap just outside the forge, which from its insignificance had hitherto escaped search; he also appeared much interested about the condition of his furnace and bellows. These places were inspected, and a large. number of dollars were found, which left no doubt of his having had some guilty knowledge of the murder, unless the presence of the money in his house could be satisfactorily accounted for.

On the next examination the Magistrate, having no powers to try such a serious matter, committed him for trial before the King's Court, the prisoner having no national representative in the group. Here came in another annoying and vexatious effect of the German Consul having attached the rights of Malietoa in the municipality. He had usurped the King's sovereign rights, amongst which, of course, was that of supreme court trials. He would not try the man himself, having no authority; and the British and American Consuls would not agree to the arrangement he proposed for the trial, for if they did so, it would be directly acknowledging the German right of usurpation that they had formally protested against, which was impossible.

In a day or two the prisoner confessed to a certain knowledge of some of the money, making an affidavit that another Frenchman had brought it to him in the night. This man was accordingly arrested, strongly denying the assertion; and, as luck would have it, the very morning that the two were going to be confronted with each other, the murderer saved all political and judicial trouble, and restored the lost sense of safety to Apian society by hanging himself in gaol by the string of his hammock. It was subsequently officially discovered that the man was an old Communist in Paris; had served eight years as a convict in New Caledonia, for crimes of outrage; had to leave New Zealand from police pressure; and, finally, finished up his career by the atrocious double murder in Apia.

No one who was not in the place at the time can imagine the sense of relief experienced when the perpetrator of this horrible crime was discovered, and rendered powerless for further mischief.

This was my last unpleasant experience of Samoan life, and one I shall not easily forget; nor, I am equally sure, will the events of the last few days of my sojourn in Samoa easily pass from my memory, for as the day approached all my kind friends, amongst whom I could reckon none more warm and true than my Samoan ones, seemed to grow kinder.

I had laboured amongst them for the previous four years, striving always to instil into them personally a regard for British fair dealing by never neglecting impartial inquiry into the least of their complaints, and to deserve for Great Britain their respect as a nation, by observing British obligations to them as strictly as I insisted upon the performance of theirs to the British; also by honestly, and as far as my official position would permit, doing all in my power to encourage them with my best advice and assistance in their efforts to establish a good government for themselves-and I am proud to say that in so doing I was most successful in gaining their thorough confidence and esteem for myself and my nationality.

They had, I knew, when they first heard of the likelihood of my being relieved, sent a petition praying that I might be left amongst them, and now were most anxious that I should remain in the capacity in which, in October, 1881, I was first recommended to them, the refusal of which appointment they had never ceased to think was not as it should have been.

My first leave-taking was on my officially introducing my successor to the King and Government, on which occasion, after her Majesty's Commission was read, many complimentary speeches were made and thanks given me for all my acts whilst in office. Requesting them to transfer to my successor the courtesies and kind regard I had all along experienced at their hands, which they cordially promised to do, I ended my official connection with the Samoan Government.

This was not, however, my last meeting with them, for a short time afterwards Malietoa and his men invited me to a farewell banquet at the seat of Government at Mulinuu, where I had passed many an interesting hour studying the people I had thought I should have to pass a great portion of my life amongst, and whom I had grown so much to like. Such conduct, however, as it turned out, did not appear to please the powers that were, for it happened that many hints I had received from Germans to the effect that if I did not cease to oppose them in their native intrigues, my relief would be effected - warnings I could not bring myself to believe had any official significance - did prove true, and my official reign in Samoa was brought to an end.

The dinner came off with all the now familiar peculiarities of Samoan custom, and hecatombs of pigs, fowls, taro, yams, and other delicacies of the season; and many were the good wishes of the King and his men for my future welfare, and that I should some time go out and see them once again; and many were the courteous messages that I was entrusted with for the English people generally.

With a grand banquet given me by my good friends of Apia, when old associations, both of pleasure and pain, were once again discussed and dismissed probably for ever, my experiences in the Navigators came to an end.

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