The pettifogging of disobliging illwill could go no further. In no single respect did the service rendered to the United States by the British government, in conveying the mails of that country to Great Britain, differ from the services rendered to the United States by the Canadian government in the conveyance of the United States mails to Great Britain by the steamers of the Canadian line. Both were paid by the United States for the service, and the fact that the British took pay from the United States no more rendered the Cunard an American line, than a similar fact regarding the Canadian government made the Canadian an American line. Smith, in dwelling upon this point, affected to discover that the ground of the British official objection, was that the Cunard Company received a subsidy from the British government, while the Canadian Company did not. If this were indeed the difficulty at which the British office stumbled, and the Canadian line could be made British by granting a subsidy for its maintenance, it was important that it should have impressed upon it this distinctive mark of British nationality. But these arguments fell upon deaf ears. The French office tried to make the British officials see reason, but their success was no better. The situation became one of real difficulty. The French could have invoked the assistance of the United States and asked that country to act as intermediary in the settlement of the account between France and Canada, but there would have been much delay, as the United States would almost certainly seek an explanation of the attitude of Great Britain toward her colony, and that would not have been easy to give. The British post office, however, suggested a way out of the difficulty. Taking its stand on the ground that the Canadian steamers were part of the United States packet service, the British post office held that the proper course for France was to arrange the matter of payment with the United States post office. But as the negotiations between the United States and France might delay the start of the service, the British expressed its willingness as a temporary measure to take from the French government the sums due to Canada, and pay them over to whom? To the Canadian government to whom alone they belonged? Not at all. It would pay these sums to the postmaster general of the United States.