cotton, unless she recognized that the South was in a state of war with
us. Looked at quietly, this act of England's helped us and hurt herself,
for it deprived her of cotton.

It was not with this, but with the reception and treatment of Mr. Adams
that the true hostility began. Slights to him were slaps at us, sympathy
with the South was an active moral injury to our cause, even if it was
mostly an undertone, politically. Then all of a sudden, something that we
did ourselves changed the undertone to a loud overtone, and we just
grazed England's declaring war on us. Had she done so, then indeed it had
been all up with us. This incident is the comic going-back on our own
doctrine of 1812, to which I have alluded above.

On November 8, 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes of the American steam sloop
San Jacinto, fired a shot across the bow of the British vessel Trent,
stopped her on the high seas, and took four passengers off her, and
brought them prisoners to Fort Warren, in Boston harbor. Mason and
Slidell are the two we remember, Confederate envoys to France and Great
Britain. Over this the whole North burst into glorious joy. Our Secretary
of the Navy wrote to Wilkes his congratulations, Congress voted its
thanks to him, governors and judges laureled him with oratory at
banquets, he was feasted with meat and drink all over the place, and,
though his years were sixty-three, ardent females probably rushed forth
from throngs and kissed him with the purest intentions: heroes have no
age. But presently the Trent arrived in England, and the British lion was
aroused. We had violated international law, and insulted the British
flag. Palmerston wrote us a letter--or Russell, I forget which wrote it--
a letter that would have left us no choice but to fight. But Queen
Victoria had to sign it before it went. "My lord," she said, "you must
know that I will agree to no paper that means war with the United