A further joint Commission was held on the affairs of Samoa late in the year 1886, in the early months of which Malietoa had offered to place Samoa under the protection of the United States--which offer was accepted by the American Consul, but his action immediately repudiated by his Government. No workable form of administration could, however, be agreed upon by the three Powers--the reason being that the Germans were determined to pursue their fixed aim of acquiring the absolute control of Samoa. The rule of Malietoa, who had been recognised in authority by treaty agreements, was irksome to them; and towards the end of 1887 they demanded satisfaction from Malietoa for alleged robbery and insults to German subjects, whom they declared had been attacked when returning from celebrating the birthday of the German Emperor. The required redress not being forthcoming, Malietoa was declared deposed by the Germans, and one Tamasese was set up in his place. The English and American Consuls did not participate in the recognition of Tamasese. A state of anarchy now prevailed for a time; and inter-tribal combats took place all over the islands, centring about Apia. An insurrection was engineered by the Germans which was headed by Matiafa, who was attacked by Malietoa; and the opportunity having, as the Germans considered, arrived for the action of the mailed fist, Germany declared war on Malietoa. In March, 1889, relations between the three Powers became extremely strained in regard to Samoa, and warships of all the nations concerned appeared off Apia. The story of the hurricane that swept the harbour on the 16th March, in the teeth of which the British _Calliope_ alone pounded her way out to sea and safety to the ringing cheers of the American sailors, is stirringly told in Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Footnote to History." The _Calliope_, fighting the tempest and making less than a knot an hour, upheld the traditions of British seamanship; while the ribs of the German flagship _Adler_ serve the purpose of providing a mournful monument to the death of German ambitions in Samoa. Until Samoan administrative affairs were finally settled, her history consists of no more than a record of squabbles and intrigues. Every fresh effort only demonstrated more clearly the futility of control by the three Powers, one of which was fixed in her determination to be supreme. A convention was, indeed, signed at Berlin in 1889 under which the Samoan Islands were declared to be independent neutral territory, Great Britain, Germany, and the United States to have equal rights, and the King Malietoa, who was a strong opponent of German claims, was again recognised as King. Matiafa, who had been stirred into insurrection for their own purposes by the Germans, now supported Malietoa, who received a vociferous welcome from the Samoans on his return to Apia in his regal capacity.