I agreed with the naval _attaché_ to deliver the guns at Callao for fifty thousand dollars. He was inclined to haggle over the price, but came to my terms in the end. It was stipulated that I was to receive that amount if the cargo was delivered or if my ship was sunk by the Chilanos while defending herself, whereas if I was captured or if I sank the ship to avoid capture, I was to get nothing. I knew I would need a ship that could do sixteen knots an hour or better for this undertaking and as I preferred to own her, so that I could do what I pleased with her, I bought the “Britannia” outright, for seventy-five thousand dollars, from the London and Hull Steamship Company. She had done seventeen knots, and probably could do it again, and was strongly built, though she was not intended for a dead weight cargo in deep-sea sailing. In the eyes of international law carrying arms, or other contraband, for warring nations is very different from furnishing munitions of war to rebels, though the moral principle, as I see it, is the same. In the first instance, friendly powers, so called, are glad to furnish the warring nations with guns, with which they may kill each other off, at a profit to their own citizens. In this case it is a survival of the fittest, with the peaceful nations extending their sympathy to both of the fighters and their aid to the one with the deepest war chest. On the other hand, the sale of arms to rebels is forbidden, regardless of the fact that there can be no revolution without a rebellion, and that it is only through revolution, which is simply evolution, that mankind has advanced out of the so-called dark ages, even though they may have been, after all, the best. With the rebels, no matter how lofty the principles they are fighting for, it is not at all a question of the survival of the fittest, but the perpetuation of the government that is, no matter how bad. The “comity of nations” is such a fearsome bugaboo that those who revolt against the established order of things, however galling it may be, are frowned upon by all nations and given no rights at all. To furnish them with arms is a crime; a violation of a law which, I am glad to say, I never have respected.