t we must use the
tools we have! If he cannot fight himself, at least he excels in making
others ready to fight."

He waited for an answer and none came. He had not only averted a Cabinet
crisis but his remorseless common sense and his unswerving adherence to
what he saw was best had strengthened his authority over all his
councillors.

When the rest had gone he turned to the young man who knew him best, his
Secretary, John Nicolay, and gripped his arm with a big hand which was
trembling:

"The most painful duty of my official life, Boy! There has been a
design, a purpose in breaking down Pope without regard to the
consequences to the country that is atrocious. It's shocking to see and
know this, but there is no remedy at present. McClellan has the army
with him and I must use him."

CHAPTER XVI

THE CHALLENGE

"One war at a time," the President said to his Secretary of State when
he proposed a foreign fight. He must now strangle Northern public
opinion to enforce this principle.

Captain Wilkes had overhauled the British Steamer _Trent_ on the high
seas, searched her and taken the Confederate Commissioners Mason and
Slidell by force from her decks.

The people of the North were mad with joy over the daring act. Congress,
swept off its feet by the wave of popular hysteria, proclaimed Wilkes a
hero and voted their thanks. The President did not move with current
opinion. He had formed the habit in boyhood of thinking for himself, and
had never allowed himself to take his cues for action from second-hand
suggestions. From the first he raised the question of Wilkes' right to
stop the vessel of a friendly nation on the high seas, search her and
take her passengers prisoners by force of arms.

The backwoods lawyer questioned, too, the right of a naval officer to
turn his quarter-deck into a court and decide questions of international
law offhand. He raised the point at once whether these men thus captured
might not be white elephants on the hands of the Government. Moreover
he reminded his Cabinet that we had fought England once for daring to do
precisely this thing.

Great Britain promptly drew her sword and made ready for war.

Queen Victoria's Government not only demanded that the return of these
passengers be made at once with an apology, but did it in a way so
offensive that a less balanced man in power would have lost his head and
committed the fatal blunder.

The tall, quiet Chief Magistrate wa