opinion across the mouth of the harbour of Bordeaux.
But they could not change the heart or real purpose of the Emperor any more than they now change those of the Hohenzollern. These men must be fought as one fights fire, with their own weapons. If blood and iron be the weapons they choose, very well, let it be blood and iron. If it be deception, very well, cheat the cheat. So concluding, Bigelow put on the finishing touch. He brought the Emperor to his own way of thinking by methods undoubtedly to the Emperor's fancy—had he recognized them.
He sat down and wrote a fairy story to the American consul at Marseilles. He told him in confidence how speculators in the United States were building some dreadful warships, very like the Alabama—indeed, nicely calculated to ruin the commerce of any nation in manner even worse than this scourge of the sea. And that they were to sail into the gulf of Mexico as privateers under letters of
