The Great War Syndicate

THE GREAT WAR SYNDICATE
BY FRANK R. STOCKTON
Author of "The Lady or the Tiger," "Rudder Grange," "The Casting
Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine," "What Might Have Been
Expected," etc., etc.

THE GREAT WAR SYNDICATE.
In the spring of a certain year, not far from the close of the nineteenth
century, when the political relations between the United States and
Great Britain became so strained that careful observers on both sides of
the Atlantic were forced to the belief that a serious break in these
relations might be looked for at any time, the fishing schooner Eliza
Drum sailed from a port in Maine for the banks of Newfoundland.
It was in this year that a new system of protection for American fishing
vessels had been adopted in Washington. Every fleet of these vessels
was accompanied by one or more United States cruisers, which
remained on the fishing grounds, not only for the purpose of warning
American craft who might approach too near the three-mile limit, but
also to overlook the action of the British naval vessels on the coast, and
to interfere, at least by protest, with such seizures of American fishing
boats as might appear to be unjust. In the opinion of all persons of
sober judgment, there was nothing in the condition of affairs at this
time so dangerous to the peace of the two countries as the presence of
these American cruisers in the fishing waters.
The Eliza Drum was late in her arrival on the fishing grounds, and
having, under orders from Washington, reported to the commander of
the Lennehaha, the United States vessel in charge at that place, her
captain and crew went vigorously to work to make up for lost time.
They worked so vigorously, and with eyes so single to the catching of

fish, that on the morning of the day after their arrival, they were hauling
up cod at a point which, according 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 thought on the morrow, or in the coming days
which might bring better under-standing, this day the unreasoning fire
blazed and roared.
With morning newspapers in their hands, men rushed from the
breakfast-tables into the