s from the work of Eli Whitney's machine. And
the seed taken from the cotton is pressed for the oil it contains, so
that from a year's crop we get nearly 150,000,000 gallons of useful
oil.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ENGLISH AND AMERICANS FIGHT AGAIN

FOR years before and after the year 1800 all Europe was filled with war
and bloodshed. Most of my readers must have heard of Napoleon Bonaparte,
one of the greatest generals that ever lived, and one of the most cruel
men. He was at the head of the armies of France, and was fighting all
Europe. England was his greatest enemy and fought him on land and sea,
and this fighting on the sea made trouble between England and the United
States.

The English wanted men for their war-vessels and said they had a right
to take Englishmen wherever they could find them. So they began to take
sailors off of American merchant vessels. They said that these men were
deserters from the British navy, but the fact is that many of them were
true-born Americans; and our people grew very angry as this went on year
after year.

What made it worse was the insolence of some of the British captains.
One of them went so far as to stop an American war-vessel, the
"Chesapeake," and demand part of her crew, who, he said, were British
deserters. When Captain Barron refused to give them up the British
captain fired all his guns and killed and wounded numbers of the
American crew. The "Chesapeake" had no guns fit to fire back, so her
flag had to be pulled down and the men to be given up.

You may well imagine that this insult made the American blood boil.
There would have been war at that time if the British government had not
owned that it was wrong and offered to pay for the injury. A few years
afterwards the insult was paid for in a different way. Another proud
British captain thought he could treat Americans in the same saucy
fashion. The frigate "President" met the British sloop-of-war "Little
Belt," and hailed it, the captain calling through his trumpet, "What
ship is that?"

Instead of giving a civil reply the British captain answered with a
cannon shot. Then the "President" fired a broadside which killed eleven
and wounded twenty-one men on the "Little Belt." When the captain of the
"President" hailed again the insolent Briton was glad to reply in a more
civil fashion. He had been taught a useful lesson.

The United States was then a poor country, and not in condition to go to
war. But no n