“What the project is, he will himself explain to you in writing. I shall be very pleased if you and he come to an arrangement, especially as I have made up my mind to remain here at Samatau indefinitely with Mrs. Raymond, or somewhere near her, and as her husband may be away from her for many months at a time (this, however, all depends upon yourself) this will be equally as pleasant for her as for me. I feel that I have a home here, and in fact I may remain in Samoa altogether. Anyway, Mr. Raymond is now in treaty with Malië for a piece of land adjoining his own estate. If he secures it for me, I am having a house built upon it.”
Raymond's letter was a voluminous one, but Frewen soon became deeply engrossed in its contents.
“My dear Frewen (let us now drop the 'Sir' and 'Captain,' for I am sure we each regard the other as a friend), I am now starting on a very long letter, and have but little time in which to finish it, for the Dancing Wave, by which I am sending it, leaves Apia to-morrow at daylight, and it will take a native runner all his time to cross over the mountains with it to Apia.”
Then he went on to say that, about six months previously, Maliê had been approached by a German gentleman (who had just arrived from Hamburg) and asked if he would sell a large tract of land near Samatau. The chief at once consulted Raymond, who could not help feeling some natural curiosity as to the object of the German gentleman making such a large purchase of land so far away from the principal port of the group (Apia). Maliê could give him no information on the subject—all he knew was that he (Maliê) had been offered a very fair price for a tract of country that he was willing to lease, but not to sell, for on it were several villages, and the soil was of such fertility that the people would deeply resent their chief parting with it and making them remove to less productive lands.
On the spur of the moment—and feeling that there was some very good reason for the German making the chief such a substantial offer—Raymond said to Maliê—
“The German has offered you ten thousand dollars for the land, but will not lease it from you. Now I am not a rich man, and even if you were willing to sell it to me for five thousand dollars, I could not buy it. But I will lease it from you for one year. I will not disturb any of your people, but at the end of the year I will make you another offer. There is some mischief on foot, Maliê. Let you and I go to Apia and find out who this man is, and why he is so eager to buy your land.”
They set out together, and at Apia gained all the information they desired. The German gentleman was the agent of a rich corporation of Hamburg merchants who wished to purchase all the available land in Samoa for the purpose of founding a colony, the principal industry of which would be cotton-growing. Cotton was bringing fabulous prices in Europe, and the corporation had already made purchases of land both in Fiji and Tahiti, and were using every effort to obtain more.
Raymond quickly made up his mind as to his course of action. He had a hurried interview with two other English planters, and a partnership of three was formed in half an hour. They had then made an agreement with Maliê and another chief to lease all the unoccupied country for many miles on each side of Samatau Bay.
“Now,” the letter went on, “here is what we purpose to do. We are going to found the biggest cotton and coffee plantation in all the South Seas, and will make a pile of money. But the one all-important thing is to have plenty of labour, and that we can only obtain from other islands—New Britain, the Solomon Group, and thereabouts, and also from the Equatorial Islands. But it is risky work recruiting labour with small, weakly-manned schooners. What is required is a big lump of a vessel, well armed, and with two crews—a white crew to work the ship and a native crew to work the boats. The Esmeralda is just the ship. She can carry six hundred native passengers, and in two trips we shall have all the labourers we want, instead of getting them in drafts of fifty or sixty at a time by small schooners—which would always be liable to be cut off and all hands killed—especially in the Solomon Islands.
“I laid our scheme before Mrs. Marston, and, to be as brief as possible, she is not only willing to let us charter her ship, but also wishes to take a share in the venture. But she wants you to keep command of the Esmeralda, as I trust you will.”