“Mr. Slidell, evidently hearing his name mentioned, came up to me and asked if I wanted to see him. Mr. Mason soon joined us, and then Mr. Eustis and Mr. McFarland, when I made known the object of my visit. The captain of the _Trent_ opposed anything like the search of his vessel, nor would he consent to show papers or passenger list.” This is from the report of Lieutenant Fairfax, and it adds that “there was considerable noise among the passengers just about this time.” The fact is the passengers were, to a man, in ardent sympathy with the Confederates. “The passengers and ship’s officers were making all kinds of disagreeable and contemptuous noises and remarks.” “Did you ever hear of such an outrage?” and “Did you ever hear of such a piratical act?” were two of the expressions that were heard by the officers waiting in the boat. “Mr. Fairfax appeared to be having an altercation with some one,” and at last one waiting officer “heard some one call out, ‘Shoot him!’” At this some armed marines were sent on board, and when they “advanced the passengers fell back.” The most insolent of all on board was a retired commander of the British navy, who was in charge of the mails. According to Lieut. James A. Greer, “the mail agent, (a man in the uniform of a commander in the royal navy, I think,) was very indignant and talkative, and tried several times to get me into discussion of the matter. I told him I was not there for that purpose. He was very bitter; he told me that the English squadron would raise the blockade in twenty days after his report of this outrage (I think he said outrage) got home; that the northerners might as well give up now,” etc., etc. The Confederate envoys, in their letter to Captain Wilkes, say that “it must be added here, omitted in the course of the narration, that before the party left the upper deck an officer of the _Trent_, named Williams, in the naval uniform of Great Britain, and known to the passengers as having charge of the mails and accompanying them to England, said to the lieutenant that, as the only person present directly representing his government, he felt called upon, in language as strong and as emphatic as he could express, to denounce the whole proceeding as a piratical act.” Further than that, “nearly all the officers of the vessel showed an undisguised hatred for the northern people, and a sympathy for the Confederates. I will do the captain of the vessel the justice to say that he acted differently from the rest, being, when I saw him, very reserved and dignified. The officers and men of our party took no apparent notice of the remarks that were made, and acted with the greatest forbearance.”