It
was little to be expected, after such explicit commendation of the act,
that the United States Government would accede to the demand; and
therefore the War and Navy Departments of the British Government made
active and extensive provision to enforce it. The haughty temper
displayed toward four gentlemen arrested on an unarmed ship subsided in
view of a demand to be enforced by the army and navy of Great Britain,
and the United States Secretary of State, after a wordy and ingenious
reply to the Minister of Great Britain at Washington City, wrote: "The
four persons in question are now held in military custody at Fort
Warren, in the State of Massachusetts. They will be cheerfully
liberated. Your lordship will please indicate a time and place for
receiving them."
There was a time when the Government and the people of the United States
would not have sanctioned such aggression on the right of friendly ships
to pass unquestioned on the high way of nations, and the right of a
neutral flag to protect everything not contraband of war; but that was a
time when arrogance and duplicity had not led them into false positions,
and when the roar of the British lion could not make Americans retract
what they had deliberately avowed.
[Footnote 191: Thoroughfare Gap was the point at which the
Commissary-General had placed a meat-packing establishment]
CHAPTER XII.
Supply of Arms at the Beginning of the War; of Powder; of
Batteries; of other Articles.
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