Is it surprising that the ill feeling on both sides accumulated till there lacked only the match to cause an explosion? The explosion came in 1807. H. M. S. _Leopard_, cruising off Norfolk in June, encounters the United States ship _Chesapeake_. At 3 P.M. the English ship edges down on the American, loaded to the water line with lumber, and signals a messenger will be sent across. The young English lieutenant going aboard the _Chesapeake_ shows written orders from Admiral Berkeley of Halifax, commanding a search of the _Chesapeake_ for six deserters. He is very courteous and pleasant about the disagreeable business: the orders are explicit; he must obey his admiral. The American commander is equally courteous. He regrets that he must refuse to obey an English admiral's orders, but his own government has given _most_ explicit orders that American vessels must _not_ be searched. The young Englishman returns with serious face. The ships were within pistol shot of each other, the men on the English decks all at their guns, the Americans off guard, lounging on the lumber piles. Quick as flash a cannon shot rips across the _Chesapeake's_ bows, followed by a broadside, and another, and yet another, that riddle the American decks to kindling wood before the astonished officers can collect their senses. Six seamen are dead and twenty-three wounded when the _Chesapeake_ strikes her colors to surrender; but the _Leopard_ does not want a captive. She sends her lieutenant back, who musters the four hundred American seamen, picks out four men as British deserters, learns that another deserter has been killed and a sixth has jumped overboard rather than be retaken, takes his prisoners back to the _Leopard_, which proceeds to Halifax, where they are tried by court-martial and shot. It isn't exactly surprising that the episode literally set the United States on fire with rage, and that the American President {336} at once ordered all American ports closed to British war vessels. The quarrel dragged on between the two governments for five years. England saw at once that she had gone too far and violated international law. She repudiated Admiral Berkeley's order, offered to apologize and pension the heirs of the victims; but _as she would not repudiate either the right of impressment or the right of search_, the American government refused to receive the apology. [Illustration: GENERAL SIR JAMES HENRY CRAIG, GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA, 1807-1811]