Union; but the Union
Government was too wise to meddle with them. The trade would fall to
America of itself. The responsibility and trouble might remain where it
was. I asked him about the Canadian fishery dispute. He thought it would
settle itself in time, and that nothing serious would come of it. 'The
Washington Cabinet had been a little hard on England,' he admitted; 'but
it was six of one and half a dozen of the other.' 'Honours were easy;
neither party could score.' 'We had been equally hard on them about
Alaska.'

He was less satisfied about Ireland. The telegraph had brought the news
of Mr. Goschen's defeat at Liverpool, and Home Rule, which had seemed to
have been disposed of, was again within the range of probabilities. He
was watching with pitying amusement, like most of his countrymen, the
weakness of will with which England allowed herself to be worried by so
contemptible a business; but he did seem to fear, and I have heard
others of his countrymen say the same, that if we let it go on much
longer the Americans may become involved in the thing one way or
another, and trouble may rise about it between the two countries.

We weighed; and I went to bed and to sleep, and so missed Pigeon Island,
where Rodney's fleet lay before the action, and the rock from which,
through his telescope, he watched De Grasse come out of Martinique, and
gave his own signal to chase. We rolled as usual between the islands. At
daylight we were again in shelter under Martinique, and again in classic
regions; for close to us was Diamond Rock--once his Majesty's ship
'Diamond,' commissioned with crew and officers--one of those curious
true incidents, out of which a legend might have grown in other times,
that ship and mariners had been turned to stone. The rock, a lonely
pyramid six hundred feet high, commanded the entrance to Port Royal in
Martinique. Lord Howe took possession of it, sent guns up in slings to
the top, and left a midshipman with a handful of men in charge. The
gallant little fellow held his fortress for several months, peppered
away at the French, and sent three of their ships of war to the bottom.
He was blockaded at last by an overwhelming force. No relief could be
spared for him. Escape was impossible, as he had not so much as a boat,
and he capitulated to famine.

We stayed two hours under Martinique. I did not land. It has been for
centuries a special object of care on the part of the French Government.
It is