It was the man on the quarter-deck--he who had handled ships among the rocks of the South Shetlands, or had lanced whales in the North Pacific, or had skimmed the sands of Cape Hatteras, in order to learn the arts of the sea as handed down from the beginning--it was the master mariner evolved by two hundred years of battle--with the sea and its people--who made the American flag supreme upon all the seas of the whole world. CHAPTER XIII DEEP-WATER STEAMSHIPS--PART I In order to comprehend the story of the efforts to establish lines of steam packets under the American flag between the United States and various ports in Europe, it is necessary at this point to review briefly our foreign relations in the period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War, and then to consider what was done by the British in the early development of steam navigation. In the year 1818, in the course of what is known as the Seminole War, General Jackson, at the head of a strong body of troops, invaded the Spanish territory of Florida, captured a number of fortified places, and ruthlessly hanged one British subject named Arbuthnot and shot another named Ambrister on the unproved charge that the two had been "stirring up the Indians to war with the United States." No war followed this outrage, but the ill feeling which had animated the British after the War of 1812 was greatly intensified. Trouble over the northeast boundary of the United States followed, and when the king of the Netherlands was asked to arbitrate the matter, he laid down a line which was not satisfactory to the English. At the same time it was exasperating to the Americans, especially to the people of Maine. In fact, open hostilities in a small way occurred near the boundary.