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.