ry performances of
the crabs had been spread abroad, no merchant vessel, large or small,
cared to approach that port; and strict orders had been issued by the
British Admiralty that no vessel of the navy should, until further
instructed, engage in combat with the peculiar craft of the Syndicate.
Until a plan of action had been determined upon, it was very desirable
that English cruisers should not be exposed to useless injury and
danger.

This being the state of affairs, a message was sent from the office of
the Syndicate across the border to the Dominion Government, which
stated that the seaport city which had been attacked by the forces of
the Syndicate now lay under the guns of its vessels, and in case of any
overt act of war by Great Britain or Canada alone, such as the entrance
of an armed force from British territory into the United States, or a
capture of or attack upon an American vessel, naval or commercial, by a
British man-of-war, or an attack upon an American port by British
vessels, the city would be bombarded and destroyed.

This message, which was, of course, instantly transmitted to London,
placed the British Government in the apparent position of being held by
the throat by the American War Syndicate. But if the British
Government, or the people of England or Canada, recognized this
position at all, it was merely as a temporary condition. In a short
time the most powerful men-of-war of the Royal Navy, as well as a fleet
of transports carrying troops, would reach the coasts of North America,
and then the condition of affairs would rapidly be changed. It was
absurd to suppose that a few medium-sized vessels, however heavily
armoured, or a few new-fangled submarine machines, however destructive
they might be, could withstand an armada of the largest and finest
armoured vessels in the world. A ship or two might be disabled,
although this was unlikely, now that the new method of attack was
understood; but it would soon be the ports of the United States, on
both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, which would lie under the guns of
an enemy.

But it was not in the power of their navy that the British Government
and the people of England and Canada placed their greatest trust, but
in the incapacity of their petty foe to support its ridiculous
assumptions. The claim that the city lay under the guns of the
American Syndicate was considered ridiculous, for few people believed
that these vessels had any guns.