rs and with the increasing influence of his journal. He
became unduly self-sufficient; he undertook not only to lay down a
policy for the guidance of the constitutional responsibilities of the
government, but to dictate methods for the campaigns. The _Tribune_
articles headed "On to Richmond!" while causing irritation to commanders
in the field and confusion in the minds of quiet citizens at home, were
finally classed with the things to be laughed at. In the later years of
the War, the influence of the _Tribune_ declined very considerably.
Henry J. Raymond with his newly founded _Times_ succeeded to some of the
power as a journalist that had been wielded by Greeley.

In November, 1861, occurred an incident which for a time threatened a
very grave international complication, a complication that would, if
unwisely handled, have determined the fate of the Republic. Early in the
year, the Confederate government had sent certain representatives across
the Atlantic to do what might be practicable to enlist the sympathies of
European governments, or of individuals in these governments, to make a
market for the Confederate cotton bonds, to arrange for the purchase of
supplies for the army and navy, and to secure the circulation of
documents presenting the case of the South. Mr. Yancey of Mississippi
was the best-known of this first group of emissaries. With him was
associated Judge Mann of Virginia and it was Mann who in November, 1861,
was in charge of the London office of the Confederacy. In this month,
Mr. Davis appointed as successor to Mann, Mr. Mason of Virginia, to whom
was given a more formal authorisation of action. At the same time, Judge
Slidell of Louisiana was appointed as the representative to France.
Mason and Slidell made their way to Jamaica and sailed from Jamaica to
Liverpool in the British mail steamer _Trent_. Captain Charles Wilkes,
in the United States frigate _San Jacinto_, had been watching the West
Indies waters with reference to blockade runners and to Wilkes came
knowledge of the voyage of the two emissaries. Wilkes took the
responsibility of stopping the _Trent_ when she was a hundred miles or
more out of Kingston and of taking from her as prisoners the two
commissioners. The commissioners were brought to Boston and were there
kept under arrest awaiting the decision from Washington as to their
status. This stopping on the high seas of a British steamer brought out
a great flood of indignation in Grea