INSULT TO FLAG

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 130, 25 January 1932, Page 7

INSULT TO FLAG

TRENT AFFAIR ENGLAND ON YERGE OF WAR WITH UNITED STATES.

CIVIL WAR- INCIDENT. When the Southern States seceded ' from the Union in 1861 the question of the- recognition of the new-horn Confederacy by European Powers assumed considerable importance. With this end in . view accredited agents were dispatched to approach the Goi verniiients of 'Great Britain and I France. The two envoys selected were Messrs. Mason and Slidell, and these gentlemen, with their secretaries, and the family of Mr. Slidell, successfully ran the blockade outside Charleston during a dark and stormy night, and, reaching Havana, there took passage on the British mail steamer Trdnt. Cruising in West Indian waters at the time, on the look-out for a Confederate privateer, was the United States sloop of war San Jacinto, whose eommander, Gaptain Wilkes, had learned at Havana that the two Southern envoys had embarked for Europe. He at once determined to intercept them, and, with this purpose, proceeded at full speed to the narrowest part of the Bahama Chan- I nel, some two hundred and fifty miles from Havana. About noon on November 8, the Trent hove in sight, and, ! as she came up, the American man-of- j war fired a shot across her bows, j following this up with a shell from a j gun of large calibre, which burst some two hundred yards beyond the mail steamer. The Trent then stopped her engines, and immediately a boat with twenty or thirty armed men put qfr from the American vessel. The naval lieutenaiit in charge of the boat boarded the Trent, proceeded to the quarterdeck, and demanded a list of the passengers on board. When this was peremptorily refused the naval officer then declared that he had information to the effect that Messrs. Mason and Slidell, and their party, were on board, and he required their immediate surrendel*. This the captain of the Trent indignantly declined, whereupon Mr. Slidell stepped forward, admitted his identity, and claimed the protection of the British flag under which he was sailing. The American lieutenant replied that he had orders to take the Confederate party on board the San Jacinto, and that he was, if necessary, prepared to use force. "Wanton Piracy." At this point Commander /Williams, R.N., the mail agent came forward and protested vigorously. "In this ship," he declared, I am the representative of Her Majesty's Government, and in distinct language I denounce this as an illegal act, an act in violation of ' international law, an act, indeed, of wanton piracy." The only response of the American officer was to walk to the ship's side and to wave his arm. Immediately three boats with thirty marines .and sixty sailors came alongside, the men leaping on board fully armed. Resistance was now, of course, out of the question, and after an affecting scene, when Mr. Slidell's daughter, who declared she would def end her father with her life, was threatened by the bayonets of the American marines the envoys and their staff were taken to the American man-of-war. They were first brought to New York, and then confined in one of the forts at Boston. When the Trent arrived in England there was, of course, "the devil to pay." Indignation meetings were held throughout the country, and the Government took a most serious view of the affair. Palmerston declared that "the Yankees are living in a f ool's paradise," and told Delane the ■same day that the Government was determined to exact complete reparation. On the other side of the Atlantic mass meetings were held_ extolling the action of the San Jacinto. Her captain was commended by the Secretary of the Navy. A vote of thanks was passed to him in the House of Representatives at Washington. Luckily, telegraphic communication between England and America ^ was non-existent in 1861, and neither country therefore, was aware of the ebulitions of the other. Luckily, too, in each country a statesman kept his !head. Lincoln declared privately that the envoys wonld have to he given up unless the TJnited States was to forswear the cause for which she had gone to war in 1812. In England the dying Prinee -Consort exerted his influefice to tone down the angry dispatch which had been prepared by the British Government. Dangerous Position. England, however, meant business. The dockyards were told to press on with the completion of battleships then under construction in the dockyards. Sixty ships were to be got ready at once for North American waters. Military preparations were active and extensive. Withlri a fortnight 8000 men with guns and ammunition were on their way to Canada. A hrigade of Guards formed part of the force dispatched. Despite the hastiness of the measures taken, the lessons of the past were not forgotteiY There was to be no "Crimean winter" in 1861-62. Each soldier on embarkation was issued with a fur cap, a sheepskin coat, a ehamois leather jacket and warm underclothing. The Emperor Napolean III. sent 2,000 snow-boots from France. The lack of telegraphic communicacation ensured that six weeks elapsed between the "affair" itself and the receipt of the British note in Washington. By that time the effervescence in the Northern States had subsided and moderate counsels prevailed. In the first days of the new year the envoys were released and handed over to British protection , arriving in Southampton on January 30, 1862. A touch of comedy now completed the incident. Some of the British transports, including that with the headquarters staff on hoard, had been unahle to enter the St. Lawrence, owing to ice, and had been compelled to put into Halifax and St. John. The only railway from those places to Montreal passed through the American State- of Maine, and it was necessary to ohtain permission from the Urilted States Government for the passage of the British detachment. The permission was at once granted, and the citizens of Maine had the curious experience of witnessing the transit of

foreign troops. .So ended the famous Trent affair which occurred seventy years ago.