In August the Federal troops attacked the Confederate position south of the Potomac at Bull’s Run, and were defeated; but the Northern levies effectually protected Washington, and held down wavering States like Maryland. Then an incident happened which threatened to extinguish the small party which among the wealthier classes in England still favoured the North. On the 8th of November, 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the _San Jacinto_, a Federal man-of-war, stopped and boarded the English mail steamer, _Trent_, which had the day before sailed from Havannah with passengers for Europe. Among these were Messrs. Mason and Slidell, Envoys accredited by the Confederate Government to the English and French Courts. Captain Wilkes arrested them and carried them away to the _San Jacinto_, in spite of the protests of the Commander of the _Trent_. On the 27th of November, when the news reached England, the partisans of the Southern States strove hard to lash the country into fury. The arrest was an outrage, but instead of inquiring whether Captain Wilkes acted under orders, the sympathisers with the South, headed by the [Illustration: THE “SAN JACINTO” STOPPING THE “TRENT.”] Tory Press, clamoured for war against the United States. The popular excitement increased every day, and the Prince Consort, then sickening under his last illness, grew anxious as to the result. The Crimean War had taught him that with popular passions roused, and a bellicose Minister like Palmerston in power, there was no limit to the folly which Englishmen might perpetrate. The Queen, who had steadfastly opposed every suggestion which had been made in the direction of manifesting sympathy with the Southern Confederacy, became nervous lest her policy of scrupulous neutrality should be thwarted. She was informed on the 29th of November that the Cabinet were determined to demand reparation, and Palmerston had indicated that he was ready to assume Captain Wilkes had been positively instructed by Mr. Lincoln’s Government to insult the British flag. To the Queen this seemed an absurd assumption. But she knew that if the idea was in Palmerston’s mind it would most certainly appear in some offensive form in Lord Russell’s despatches. Yet, if it was offensively manifested there, it would tempt the United States Government to refuse reparation--for Mr. Lincoln had also to contend with a stupid, boastful party in the Northern States, who were as eagerly clamouring for war with England as the same stupid party in England were clamouring for war with America.