this great achievement had quietly taken place. An
expedition sailing in August from Fortress Monroe seized the forts which
commanded Hatteras Inlet off the coast of North Carolina. In November,
Commander Dupont, U. S. N., seized Port Royal, one of the best harbors
on the coast of South Carolina, and established there a naval base.
Thenceforth, while the open Northern ports received European munitions
without hindrance, it was a risky business getting munitions into the
ports of the South. Only the boldest traders would attempt to "run the
blockade," to evade the Federal patrol ships by night and run into a
Southern port.

However, for one moment in the autumn of 1861, it seemed as if all the
masterful work of the Northern navy would be undone by the Northern
people themselves in backing up the rashness of Captain Charles Wilkes,
of the war-ship San Jacinto. On the high seas he overhauled the British
mail steamer, Trent. Aboard her were two Confederate diplomatic
agents, James M. Mason and John Slidell, who had run the blockade from
Charleston to Havana and were now on their way to England. Wilkes took
off the two Confederates as prisoners of war. The crowd in the North
went wild. "We do not believe," said the New York Times, "that the
American heart ever thrilled with more sincere delight."

The intemperate joy of the crowd over the rashness of Wilkes was due in
part to a feeling of bitterness against the British Government. In
May, 1861, the Queen had issued a proclamation of neutrality, whose
justification in international law was hotly debated at the time and was
generally denied by Northerners. England was the great cotton market of
the world. To the excited Northern mind, in 1861, there could be but one
explanation of England's action: a partisan desire to serve the South,
to break up the blockade, and to secure cotton. Whether such was the
real purpose of the ministry then in power is now doubted; but at
that time it was the beginning of a sharp contention between the two
Governments. The Trent affair naturally increased the tension. So keen
was the indignation of all classes of Englishmen that it seemed, for a
moment, as if the next step would be war.

In America, the prompt demand for the release of Mason and Slidell was
met, at first, in a spirit equally bellicose. Fortunately there were
cool and clear heads that at once condemned Wilkes's action as a gross
breach of international law. Prominent among these