nquest of the rest of Britain--which in
such a case would almost certainly rise to a man--would be next door
to impossible.

He, however, so far yielded as to agree to send a message to the King
of England to arrange terms of surrender, if possible at once, in
order to save further bloodshed, and then, if these terms were
rejected, to prepare for a general assault on the seventh day from
then.

These terms were accepted as a compromise, and the next morning the
bombardment ceased both from the land batteries and the air. At
daybreak on the 30th an envoy left the Tsar's headquarters in one of
the war-balloons, flying a flag of truce, and descended in Hyde Park.
He was received by the King in Council at Buckingham Palace, and,
after a lengthy deliberation, an answer was returned to the effect
that on condition the bombardment ceased for the time being, London
would be surrendered at noon on the 6th of December if no help had by
that time arrived from the other cities of Britain. These terms,
after considerable opposition from General le Gallifet and General
Cosensz, the Italian Commander-in-Chief, were adopted and ratified at
noon that day, almost at the very moment that Alexis Mazanoff was
presenting the reply of the King of England to the President of the
Federation in New York.

As the relief expedition had been fully decided upon, whether the
British Government recognised the Federation or not, everything was
in readiness for an immediate start as soon as the _Ithuriel_ brought
definite news as to the acceptation or rejection of the President's
second offer. For the last seven weeks the ten dockyards of the east
coast of America, and at Halifax in Nova Scotia, had been thronged
with shipping, and swarming with workmen and sailors.

All the vessels which had been swept off the Atlantic by the
war-storm, and which were of sufficient size and speed to take part
in the expedition, had been collected at these eleven ports. Whole
fleets of liners of half a dozen different nationalities, which had
been laid up since the establishment of the blockade, were now lying
alongside the quays, taking in vast quantities of wheat and
miscellaneous food-stuffs, which were being poured into their holds
from the glutted markets of America and Canada. Every one of these
vessels was fitted up as a troopship, and by the time all
arrangements were complete, more than a thousand vessels, carrying on
an average twelve hundred men each, w