Such enterprise could not escape the vigilant eyes of England and Germany, both mindful of the course of the sea power in history.  The German emperor, seizing as a pretext a quarrel between his consul in the islands and a native king, laid claim to an interest in the Samoan group.  England, aware of the dangers arising from German outposts in the southern seas so near to Australia, was not content to stand aside.  So it happened that all three countries sent battleships to the Samoan waters, threatening a crisis that was fortunately averted by friendly settlement.  If, as is alleged, Germany entertained a notion of challenging American sea power then and there, the presence of British ships must have dispelled that dream.

The result of the affair was a tripartite agreement by which the three powers in 1889 undertook a protectorate over the islands.  But joint control proved unsatisfactory.  There was constant friction between the Germans and the English.  The spheres of authority being vague and open to dispute, the plan had to be abandoned at the end of ten years.  England withdrew altogether, leaving to Germany all the islands except Tutuila, which was ceded outright to the United States.  Thus one of the finest harbors in the Pacific, to the intense delight of the American navy, passed permanently under American dominion.  Another triumph in diplomacy was set down to the credit of the State Department.

=Cleveland and the Venezuela Affair.=—­In the relations with South America, as well as in those with the distant Pacific, the diplomacy of the government at Washington was put to the test.  For some time it had been watching a dispute between England and Venezuela over the western boundary of British Guiana and, on an appeal from Venezuela, it had taken a lively interest in the contest.  In 1895 President Cleveland saw that Great Britain would yield none of her claims.  After hearing the arguments of Venezuela, his Secretary of State, Richard T. Olney, in a note none too conciliatory, asked the British government whether it was willing to arbitrate the points in controversy.  This inquiry he accompanied by a warning to the effect that the United States could not permit any European power to contest its mastery in this hemisphere.  “The United States,” said the Secretary, “is practically sovereign on this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition....  Its infinite resources, combined with its isolated position, render it master of the situation and practically invulnerable against any or all other powers.”