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Show BRITISH BLUFFING. What an old bluffer Great Britain Is. A hundred hun-dred years ago she was omnipotent on the ocean and stopped merchantmen without ceremony ana if any on board happened to have been born under un-der the British flag, they were impressed as sea-dor sea-dor the British flag, they were impressed as seamen. This was a bone of contention between the United States and England from 1783 up to the war of 1812. pressing of seamen from the ships of our country must cea.se was one of the causes of that war, and though the subject was not mentioned in the treaty, the practice was stopped. When our great Civil War came on, two gentlemen gen-tlemen sailed on the British ship Trent, one to be a representative of the Confederate Government in England, the other in France. Commander Wilkes with the steam frigate San Jacinto overhauled over-hauled the Trent at ssa, brought her to, boarded the Trent and took off tho two commissioners and brought them into an American port. Of course there was a deal of excitement. From the first tome most influential people in England wanted the Government to interpose in behalf of tho Confederacy. Con-federacy. The Emperor of the French was ot the same mind. But the same mail that carried the news of the capture of Mason and Slidell carried car-ried a note from Secretary Seward to Lord John Russell, expressing the regret of our Government at the Trent incident, offering the full release of the commissioners and their transportation to England But Lord -John put the note in his pocket, went to Parliament and delivered a roaring speech upon what Great Britain was going to do unless ample apologies and such reparation as was possible were forthcoming at onc. Other gentlemen joined in the denunciations and they made a day of it. At the same time hurry-up or ders were Issued to send a division ot troops to Canada. Next morning Lord Russell read to Parliament Par-liament the dispatch which he had kept in his pocket the previous day. A few days later he was obliged to make pub lie another dispatch from the same source to the , effect that, having heard that it was the purpose of Great Britain to send reinforcement to Canada, Can-ada, and in as much as navigation in the lower St. Lawrence was dangerous at that season ot the year, it was a pleasure to the Government or the United Sttes to tender the free use of American Amer-ican ports for the debarkation of such troops as Great Britain might please to send and the use of American railroads to carry such troops to their distinction. Then for his wickedness, the United States Government made an admiral of Commodore Commo-dore Wilkes and the Incident was closed. Last week a Russian cruiser ran upon an Eng lish ship in the Red Sea, and as its commander would not show his manifest and as his ship was loaded with war munitions, the Russian took the ship into port. When the news reached Eng land, there was furry everywhere. The Government Govern-ment could scarcely restrain the people. They all wanted to go to war with Russia. The Govern ment was fierce and peremptory in its demands. Still all the time all the world knew that theie would be no war; that if Russia was In the wrong, she would make it right, for Russia just now has plenty of business on hands; that if the Russian sea captain -was right, England would not press her claims, for while Great Britain encourages strife among outside nations, she wants no wars of her own, especially not with any first-class power. She would rather bluff for a month than to have one day of real war. |