rages.

Unfortunately for the Wesleyan cause, these outrages were much exaggerated by well-meaning but inaccurate friends, so that people grew sceptical as to the truth of any of them.

Being now in the zenith of his power, in the enviable position of a ruler who is his own treasurer and auditor and also controls the law courts, he became, as men of his stamp always do become, a petty tyrant, without the tact. or temper to control the disaffection he created. A dangerous feeling against him began to develop itself among the chiefs, and instead of conciliating them, as a shrewder man would have done, he trusted everything to his ascendancy over the king, and treated chiefs and commoners alike as his inferiors in virtue of his office. In 1886 four prisoners, undergoing imprisonment for petty offences, escaped from jail, and hid for months among the caves at the back of the island, living upon such food as the sympathy of the people procured for them under cover of night. On the night of January 5, 1887, they lay in wait for Mr Baker as he drove home in the dusk with his son and daughter. They fired, but the shot missed its mark, breaking the boy's arm as he ran to stop them, and wounding the girl as she tried to screen her father. The horse, not less terrified than its driver, bolted, leaving the two wounded children on the ground, nor could it be stopped until it had carried its master to a place of safety. It was a savage crime, but the revenge. taken for it was scarcely behind it in savagery. There were wholesale arrests: there was a trial in the presence of the native Chief Justice, a native jury, and Mr Baker; but as the public was not admitted to the court, and the

AN EYE FOR A TOOTH.

7

few Europeans present were ignorant of Tongan, we have only native accounts of the proceedings to rely upon. Several men were condemned to death, including the actual perpetrators of the crime, and four, one of whom was more than probably innocent, were taken to Malinoa island and summarily shot. Others would have followed had not the Europeans interfered and threatened Mr Baker personally, and during the delay thus secured H.M.S. Diamond arrived with the High Commissioner, Sir Charles Mitchell, from Fiji.

Mr Baker had affected from the first to regard the attack upon him as a conspiracy of the Wesleyans, and sought to connect the missionary, and even the English Vice-Consul, with the crime. It was an opportunity for wiping out the remnant of the Wesleyan Church. On the pretence that there was an insurrection against the king's authority in Tongatabu, he summoned the men of Haapai and Vavau to come and restore order. They came with all the savage ruffianism in them aroused by the remembrance that Tongatabu was their ancient enemy. Armed, and with blackened faces, they spread over the country, plundering the houses of the Wesleyans, flogging and insulting all who refused to join the Free Church. The remnant of those who still held out, some two hundred souls, were huddled on board two small schooners, and shipped off to Fiji. They were thus thrust destitute upon the Government of that colony, which was put to no small inconvenience and expense in providing for them. Eventually they were settled on the fertile island of Koro, dissatisfied, and in continual disagreement with their Fijian neighbours. It was their sudden arrival that

caused the High Commissioner to visit Tonga. The exhaustive judicial inquiry which he held furnished ample grounds for the removal of Mr Baker under the Order in Council which empowers the High Commissioner to remove any British subject who, in his opinion, is dangerous to the peace and good order of the island in which he is living. But since Mr Baker, in fact, constituted in himself the Tongan Government, it was not clear that his removal would not be followed by anarchy; and as the king undertook to put a stop to the persecution of the Wesleyans, and to adopt certain other reforms, Sir Charles Mitchell preferred allowing them to be effected through Mr Baker's agency to incurring the risk of the chaos that might result from his removal. The ship of war therefore sailed for Fiji, taking with her the rest of the prisoners lying under sentence of death.

Now Mr Baker had expected to be removed, and he attributed this leniency to a different motive. He argued, doubtless, that if the High Commissioner had failed to remove him after the wholesale persecution of the Wesleyans and other illegalities, it was because he was afraid to do so, and that he was not likely to take extreme action against him for any lesser cause. So long, therefore, as he restrained himself within certain limits, he might continue his former policy without let or hindrance. The king, who had so often been his scapegoat, could be made. to bear the sole blame of breaking the promises made to Sir Charles Mitchell. So the promises were not fulfilled, and things went on very much as before, except that the annoyances to which the Wesleyans were subjected were a little less flagrant. Not content with having escaped

retribution, he wanted to celebrate his triumph to the world. He was living in the king's palace, and to some extent at the king's expense. His crippled children were drawing pensions from the Treasury. It was time to settle with his enemies-such, at least, as had not been shot or exiled to Fiji. He called a shorthand writer, and dictated in Tongan a report of the attack on him, which he persisted in calling "the assassination," writing with gross disrespect of the High Commissioner, and accusing the British Vice-Consul, since deceased, of having furnished the musket with which the crime was committed. This document was thereupon taken to the native Chief of Police to be signed as his report to the king, for by this means did Mr Baker innocently suppose that he would protect himself from the penalties for the libels of which he was the author. It was then translated, and published as a Blue-book headed "Private and Confidential," probably with the view of protecting the Auckland printers.

But this time he had gone too far. The High Commissioner at once called upon him to retract the libels or take the consequences, and he apologised in the most abject manner; but, when it came to publishing a refutation of the libel, difficulties arose. The Chief of Police flatly refused to sign it, and when at last he was induced to present it to the king, his Majesty threw it on the ground, declaring that he had been made a fool of. But it was printed all the same, " By his Majesty's command."

The Tongans were beginning to have quite enough of Mr Baker, who lived most of his time in Auckland devising obnoxious laws, travelling backwards and forwards at

their expense, and only coming among them accompanied by a retainer armed with a revolver. In 1889 they simply neglected to pay their taxes, and the Premier was in consequence unable to pay the salaries of his numerous officials. Now when a Government, however small, fails to pay its own servants, its time is near. The power to distrain for taxes was useless, for as soon as the sheriff's officer was abroad the defaulter made temporary loans of his property to his relations. The alternative was to sell the defaulter's labour to the highest bidder, but a Government cannot put the whole of its subjects up to auction. So the Premier wisely went to Auckland, and, to tide over his more pressing necessities, floated a loan on the security of copra to be hereafter levied.

But the High Commissioner had not done with him. The king's promises to Sir Charles Mitchell had not been fulfilled the Wesleyan exiles were still a burden upon the Government of Fiji. It was useless for Mr Baker to shelter himself behind the king, because a Minister whose advice is not taken ought logically to resign. Mr Baker had, however, no intention of resigning, and could not afford to let the High Commissioner see the king in his absence. In May 1890, therefore, he went from Auckland to Tonga to await the expected visit, writing to some friends that he would return as soon as he had disposed of the "champion of the Wesleyans," as he playfully termed Sir John Thurston.

H.M.S. Rapid anchored at Nukualofa on the 25th June 1890, and on the 27th Sir John and his suite paid an official visit to King George at his house, the greater part of which was occupied by Mr Baker and his family. He