"Look at Germany; look at Italy. It is the same there. Such is
unification, and there's no other way to get it--no other way to keep it
after you've got it," said the poor emperor always.

But the grumblers only replied, "We can't stand the taxes--we can't stand
them."

Now right on top of this the cabinet reported a national debt amounting
to upward of forty-five dollars--half a dollar to every individual in the
nation. And they proposed to fund something. They had heard that this
was always done in such emergencies. They proposed duties on exports;
also on imports. And they wanted to issue bonds; also paper money,
redeemable in yams and cabbages in fifty years. They said the pay of the
army and of the navy and of the whole governmental machine was far in
arrears, and unless something was done, and done immediately, national
bankruptcy must ensue, and possibly insurrection and revolution. The
emperor at once resolved upon a high-handed measure, and one of a nature
never before heard of in Pitcairn's Island. He went in state to the
church on Sunday morning, with the army at his back, and commanded the
minister of the treasury to take up a collection.

That was the feather that broke the camel's back. First one citizen, and
then another, rose and refused to submit to this unheard-of outrage
--and each refusal was followed by the immediate confiscation of the
malcontent's property. This vigor soon stopped the refusals, and the
collection proceeded amid a sullen and ominous silence. As the emperor
withdrew with the troops, he said, "I will teach you who is master here."
Several persons shouted, "Down with unification!" They were at once
arrested and torn from the arms of their weeping friends by the soldiery.