ording to the nationality of the
calculator, might be two and three-quarters or three and one-quarter
miles from the Canadian coast.

In consequence of this inattention to the apparent extent of the marine
mile, the Eliza Drum, a little before noon, was overhauled and seized
by the British cruiser, Dog Star. A few miles away the Lennehaha had
perceived the dangerous position of the Eliza Drum, and had started
toward her to warn her to take a less doubtful position. But before
she arrived the capture had taken place. When he reached the spot
where the Eliza Drum had been fishing, the commander of the Lennehaha
made an observation of the distance from the shore, and calculated it
to be more than three miles. When he sent an officer in a boat to the
Dog Star to state the result of his computations, the captain of the
British vessel replied that he was satisfied the distance was less than
three miles, and that he was now about to take the Eliza Drum into port.

On receiving this information, the commander of the Lennehaha steamed
closer to the Dog Star, and informed her captain, by means of a
speaking-trumpet, that if he took the Eliza Drum into a Canadian port,
he would first have to sail over his ship. To this the captain of the
Dog Star replied that he did not in the least object to sail over the
Lennehaha, and proceeded to put a prize crew on board the fishing
vessel.

At this juncture the captain of the Eliza Drum ran up a large American
flag; in five minutes afterward the captain of the prize crew hauled it
down; in less than ten minutes after this the Lennehaha and the Dog
Star were blazing at each other with their bow guns. The spark had
been struck.

The contest was not a long one. The Dog Star was of much greater
tonnage and heavier armament than her antagonist, and early in the
afternoon she steamed for St. John's, taking with her as prizes both
the Eliza Drum and the Lennehaha.

All that night, at every point in the United States which was reached
by telegraph, there burned a smothered fire; and the next morning, when
the regular and extra editions of the newspapers were poured out upon
the land, the fire burst into a roaring blaze. From lakes to gulf,
from ocean to ocean, on mountain and plain, in city and prairie, it
roared and blazed. Parties, sections, politics, were all forgotten.
Every American formed part of an electric system; the same fire flashed
into every soul. No matter what might be