a civil administration were created. Shortly after, many traders and locals, including a Samoan tax collector, circulated a petition requesting a change in the way the copra crop was taxed and asking for the Navy to cease governing the territory. The petition was sent to members of Congress and the cause was picked up by California representative Julius Kahn and gathered significant press coverage. This movement eventually reached President Roosevelt; his decision was not to act on the petition. On December 16, 1902, Sebree was granted a leave of absence to return to the United States and care for his wife who had been badly hurt in a fall. In his place, Lieutenant Commander Henry Minett, Sebree's executive officer, was made acting commandant of the station and therefore acting governor of the territory. He was also given command of the Wheeling. Captain Edmund Beardsley Underwood was selected as Sebree's replacement, but that decision was not made official immediately, and Underwood remained in Washington to consult with Sebree and President Roosevelt on the governance of the territory. Underwood's selection was not announced until May 1903. Later career Following his wife's recovery, Sebree returned to service and was given command of on February 11, 1903. The Wisconsin was the flagship of the North Squadron of the Pacific fleet under Robley D. Evans. While under Sebree's command, the Wisconsin and her crew were evaluated as one of the best, according to annual targeting exercises. Nicholson court-martial In the late summer of 1903, Paymaster Rishworth Nicholson of assaulted a German Consul at a ball in Yantai, China. He was promptly brought up on charges of "drunkenness", "scandalous conduct tending to the destruction of good morals", and "falsehood" and taken to the Wisconsin for his court martial. Sebree and a group of six other officers found him guilty of the first charge, guilty of a lesser offense for the second charge, and not guilty on the third. His sentence was determined to be a reduction in grade equivalent to one year of seniority. Three of the officers, not including Sebree, wrote a supplementary opinion requesting clemency for Nicholson. However, Rear Admiral Evans, the commander of the Asiatic Squadron, rejected the verdict as inadequate and requested that the court reconsider the decision. The court reconvened and returned the same judgment and sentence. In response, Evans wrote a scathing critique of the process, calling it a "travesty