cast her down with a concussion on the summit of the reef, where she lay on her beam ends, her back broken, buried in breaking seas, but safe." The British warship Calliope, within a few paces of collision between the Vandalia and the reef, seized a moment of light to slip cables and point herself for the exit of the harbour. To attempt to steam out to sea involved every sort of risk; but certain destruction awaited behind. Contending against the whole force of the hurricane, Captain Kane steamed forward, inch by inch (it took two hours to cover the length of four cables) through the bottleneck, past the Trenton, towards the ocean. The crew of the doomed American ship and their sturdy Admiral stood on the deck and cheered the Calliope as she passed. Actually both were saved: by a miracle the Trenton rode out the storm in the harbour; the Calliope's engines stood the strain, and the open sea was safely reached. Eleven ships perished in Apia bay. The hurricane and destruction of the ships prevented the threatened outbreak of hostilities in Samoan waters. Bismarck had never wanted war with America, nor with Great Britain. The magnitude of the disaster in Apia bay still more inclined the Powers to peace; so the projected Conference in Berlin took place. "The example thus offered by Germany," wrote Stevenson, "is rare in history; in the career of Prince Bismarck, so far as I am instructed, it should stand unique. On a review of these two years [since the failure of the Washington Conferences of 1887] of blundering, bullying, and failure in a little isle of the Pacific, he seems magnanimously to have owned his policy was in the wrong." The Conference at Berlin sat from April 29 until June 14, 1889. On the last day, an Anglo-German-American treaty was signed, guaranteeing the autonomy of the Samoan Islands (under King Malietoa) with a joint Protectorate of the Three Powers. This system lasted, not very happily, until 1900, when the Berlin Tripartite Treaty was abrogated, and the Samoan Islands were divided between Germany, which took the bulk of them, and the United States, which got Tutuila. Great Britain received as compensation from Germany the German rights over the Tonga Islands and certain of the Solomon Islands.1 From the United States Great Britain asked for no compensation. 1 Treaty between Great Britain and Germany, signed at London, November 14, 1899, in British and Foreign State Papers, vol. 91, pp. 70-4. Treaty between Great Britain, Germany and the United States, signed at Washington, December 2, 1899 (B. and F. State Papers, vol. 91, pp. 75-8). CHAPTER XXII THE SACKVILLE-WEST LETTER Grover Cleveland was the first Democrat to become President since Buchanan, that is, since 1861 and the Civil War. His election was the conclusive sign of the complete reunion of South and North. The Democratic Party had always stood for a moderate tariff as against the Republicans, who were for a high tariff. This was not controversy regarding Free Trade and Protection, but regarding two different degrees of Protection. But the Democrat theory of Protection had a Free Trade bias. "Those who buy imports," wrote Cleveland, in his Message of December 6, 1887, "pay the duty charged thereon into the public treasury, but the great majority of our citizens, who buy domestic articles of the same class, pay a sum at least approximately equal to this duty to the home manufacturer." The Federal Government had more revenue than it required at this time; and as Cleveland "watched the mounting surplus, bringing with it the inevitable evils of extravagance and inefficiency," he decided to propose some reduction of the tariff. This decision, and the Message of December, 1887, cost him the Presidency, when he stood for a second election in the next year. His opponents said that he was merely working in the interest of Great Britain, a country always eager to see new markets opened to its exports. Mr. Blaine, who was then in Europe, was reported as saying that the President's Message amounted to a policy of Free Trade for the good of Great Britain. Fuel was added, deliberately, to this flame by the Sackville-West incident, which was carefully staged. Lionel Sackville Sackville-West was born in 1827, being the fifth son of the Earl de la Warr. He entered the Foreign Office as a 1 McElroy, op. cit., I, 270. Cp. the remarks of Bryce, The American Commonwealth (ed. 1910), I, 178, 183. précis-writer to Lord Aberdeen in 1845. In 1847 he became attaché at Lisbon, and for the next forty years was continuously employed in one important post after another-Naples, Turin, Madrid, Berlin, and Paris. At Paris, where he was secretary of embassy to Lord Lyons, he went through the period of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, and acquitted himself well. When Sir Edward Thornton, who had won the highest respect for fair-mindedness at Washington, was made Ambassador at St. Petersburg, Mr. West (as he then was) was appointed to succeed him. West was in many ways well qualified for the post: he was an able and experienced diplomatist; he was good-tempered and had a manner of unaffected geniality. In every way he was considered a “safe” man, sociable, popular, yet reserved and even laconic in conversation. In 1852 Mr. West had formed an attachment to a Spanish lady, a Roman Catholic, who was already married. This lady had lived with him as his wife until her death in 1871. It is a remarkable fact that, in the scrupulous administration of Queen Victoria, Mr. West's irregular union did not prevent him from receiving high public employment. He brought his daughters with him to Washington, and they were received into American society. Until 1888 Mr. West's mission was an unqualified success. After the Phoenix Park murders and the repressive acts of the British Government in Ireland in 1882, the Irish in the United States did much to embitter AngloAmerican relations, but Mr. West was able to prevent any especial difficulties. Throughout the Samoan affair, the State Department and he were on the best of terms. But in 1888 he allowed himself to fall into a trap which it ought to have been in the ABC of an experienced diplomatist to avoid. In 1885 Mr. West was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. He also appears about this time to have assumed the style of Sackville-West. In October, 1888, he succeeded his elder brother as Baron Sackville. So he is found bearing a different title at different times throughout the incident that was to end his diplomatic career. When the presidential election campaign was in full swing in the last half of the year 1888, the British Minister at Washington received a letter, addressed from Pomona, California, and signed Charles F. Murchison. It was dated September 4, 1888, and ran : The gravity of the political situation here and the duties of those voters who are of English birth but still consider England the mother R land constitute the apology I hereby offer for intruding for information. Many English citizens have for years refrained from being naturalised, as they thought no good would accrue from the act. But Mr. Cleveland's administration has been so favourable and friendly towards England, so kind in not enforcing the Retaliatory Act passed by Congress, so sound on the Free Trade question, and so hostile to the dynamite school of Ireland, that by the hundreds-yes, by the thousands-they have become naturalised for the express purpose of helping to elect him over again, as one above all of American politicians they consider their own and their country's best friend. I am one of these unfortunates. With a right to vote for President, I am unable to understand for whom I shall cast my ballot. . . . I will further add that the two men, Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Harrison, are evenly matched, and a few votes may elect either one. Mr. Harrison is a high-tariff man, a believer in the American side in all questions, and undoubtedly an enemy to British interests generally. ... As you are at the fountain-head of knowledge on the question, and know whether Mr. Cleveland's present policy is temporary only, . . . I apply to you, privately and confidentially, for information which shall in turn be treated as entirely secret. Such information would put me at rest myself, and if favourable to Mr. Cleveland enable me, on my own responsibility, to assure many of our countrymen that they would do England a service by voting for Cleveland and against the Republican system of tariff. The real name of the writer remained secret for four or five months, but was at last made public, because too many ardent Republicans were bringing themselves to the notice of the Presidentelect as the author of the famous letter. The true name of the writer, according to a statement of Harrison Gray Otis, editor of the Los Angeles Times, and W. F. Fitzgerald, Member of the California Republican State Executive Committee (in a letter to Presidentelect Harrison), was George Osgoodby: "He is a bonâ fide, reputable citizen of Pomona, where he has lived a number of years, being a man of family, a fruit-farmer, and a property-owner to the amount of some 20,000 dollars. He is of Scotch-English parentage, but was born in the United States. He is not a politician, office-holder, or officeseeker, but he has small love for the English Government. He is a modest man of intelligence and thought, and has been a teacher." 1 When Sir Lionel Sackville-West received this modest man's letter on September 12, he was staying in his summer-house at Beverley, 1 Parliamentary Papers, 1889, LXXXVII, pp. 663-4. Massachusetts. As a rule, Sir Lionel was a poor letter-writer; he was known to have a "distaste for epistolary efforts." 1 But on this occasion he was alone; it was a rainy day 2; he had nothing better to do. He stepped into the trap, and replied, on September 13, to Cha. F. Murchison, Pomona, Los Angeles Co., California 3: (Private.) Sir, I am in receipt of your letter of the 4th instant, and beg to say that I fully appreciate the difficulty in which you find yourself in casting your vote. You are probably aware that any political party which openly favoured the mother-country at the present moment would lose popularity, and that the party in power is fully aware of this fact. The party, however, is, I believe, still desirous of maintaining friendly relations with Great Britain, and is still as desirous of settling all questions with Canada which have been unfortunately reopened since the retraction of the Treaty by the Republican majority in the Senate and by the President's Message, to which you allude. All allowances must therefore be made for the political situation as regards the presidential election thus created. It is, however, impossible to predict the course which President Cleveland may pursue in the matter of retaliation should he be elected, but there is every reason to believe that, while upholding the position he has taken, he will manifest a spirit of conciliation in dealing with the question involved in his Message. I enclose an article from the New York Times of the 22nd August, and remain yours faithfully, L. S. SACKVILLE-WEST. The cutting which Sir Lionel enclosed from the New York Times gave this Democrat journal's reasons for supporting the Cleveland candidature. A similar trick played upon the Mexican Minister, Señor Romero, failed; he curtly replied that he could not express an opinion on the domestic affairs of a friendly nation.4 The unfortunate letter of the British Minister was duly delivered to the address of the so-called Charles Murchison, and, of course, found its way at the right moment into the Press. The New York Tribune (Republican) published it first on October 22; and later, on November 4, the day of election, it published a full-page facsimile of the letter, with the significant head-lines: 1 1 Rosen, Forty Years of Diplomacy (1922), I, 77. 2 Ibid. |