It was, indeed, not a very lively strife in the later years of this period, for Great Britain had abstained from exercising her “undoubted and hitherto undisputed right” as against American ships. But on November 8, 1861, an American captain, being not well informed in the causes of America’s fights for life and liberty, undertook the very act that, when done by Great Britain, led to the War of 1812. He stopped a neutral ship on the high seas and took from her men whom he declared to be American citizens, and without any form of trial haled them away to a condition that was in law, if not in fact, exactly the condition of the impressed American seamen before the War of 1812. Great Britain had often taken advantage of such an act; she had in more than 6,000 cases, of which we have official knowledge, benefited by such doings on the part of her naval officers. But she had never suffered from such an aggression as that until November 8, 1861. There is no recorded act nor official utterance of the government of Great Britain during the first seventy-eight years of the existence of the United States that can be construed as a renunciation of the right of taking British subjects from neutral ships in time of war; but when an American naval captain took an American subject from a British ship the British Prime Minister, with swift indignation, declared it “an act of violence which was an affront to the British flag and _a violation of international law_.” And that was not all. “The British Government could not allow such an affront to the national honour to pass without full reparation.” Indeed, the affront was so great that the British Minister was to consent, for the purpose of consideration and negotiation, “to a delay not exceeding seven days.” The outrages perpetrated on American seamen in the old days have never been avenged; but because the British were at last willing to acknowledge in the most emphatic of official documents that the United States waged a just war in 1812, they may be forgiven. CHAPTER VIII THE CAPTURE OF PORT ROYAL A FLEET OF SEVENTEEN SHIPS, CARRYING 155 GUNS, SENT TO TAKE A HARBOR THAT WOULD MAKE A CONVENIENT NAVAL STATION FOR THE ATLANTIC BLOCKADERS--THERE WERE TWO “EXCEEDINGLY WELL-BUILT EARTHWORKS” “RATHER HEAVILY ARMED” DEFENDING THE CHANNEL, BUT ONE PART OF THE SQUADRON ATTACKED THEM IN FRONT, ANOTHER ENFILADED THEM, AND IN LESS THAN FIVE HOURS THE CONFEDERATES FLED FOR LIFE--A HEAVY GALE WEATHERED WITH SMALL LOSS--INTERESTING INCIDENTS OF THE BATTLE.