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The history of the Great War at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth teems with instances of interruption by our navy of the enemy's coast-wise trade when his ocean trade had been destroyed. The history of the American War of 1812 supplies other instances.
It will be remembered that the Panama Canal act of 1912 had exempted American coast-wise traffic through the canal from the payment of tolls. The law had been passed under a Republican, President Taft, and both the Progressive and Democratic platforms of 1912 had favored exemption.
Alone on my plateau I saw the fires leap up in a coast-wise line of beacons that dyed the night vermilion. The tiny point of seaward green was crawling snail-like on the sea and at last my gaze was rewarded by a slender flowering spray of rocket fire, followed by another and another. Then the point of light ceased crawling and stood still.
"And yet, though I was in the depths, so to speak, up to the eyes in it, as I stood there in the rain and wind, the sweat bitter cold on my body, I saw the coast-wise lights, and realized with a sudden jump of the heart what I was doing. I was out at sea. And I'd been born at sea. Twenty-six years in cotton-wool! Can you realize what I had done?
As Governor he evinced an efficient statesmanship that promised well for his future career. Roberts had not long been governor when trouble arose with the British coast-wise traders that gave rise to a most interesting crisis. The Liberian Government in regulating commerce within its jurisdiction had enacted laws imposing duties on all imported goods.
The American public did not appreciate at the time the true significance of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, and a few years later Congress inserted in the Panama Tolls Act a clause exempting American ships engaged in the coast-wise trade from the payment of tolls.
Soon ships would be coming and going. Little gasoline schooners would dash away to catch the cream of the coast-wise trading; great steamers would bring in coal, food, and men. In all this busy traffic, how easy it would be for the Russian to depart unseen. Johnny sighed. He had grown exceedingly fond of dogging the track of that man. And besides, that thousand dollars would come in handy.
An English squadron of eight sail manoeuvred coast-wise on the Armada's inner flank, while, unperceived by the Spanish lookout, Drake stole away to sea, beat round its outer flank, and then, making the most of a westerly slant in the shifting breeze, edged in to starboard. The Spaniards saw nothing till it was too late, Drake having given them a berth just wide enough to keep them quiet.
Between vast grey boulders he swam out to the tossing open, forced himself some little way against a coast-wise current, and then returned to his refuge battered and refreshed. Ten minutes later he was scaling the cliff again, and his mind, cleared for the moment of a heavy disgust for the affair he had in hand, was turning over his plans for the morning.
If it be hoped that a localised force will render coast-wise traffic safe from the enemy, a little knowledge of what has happened in war and a sufficiently close investigation of conditions will demonstrate how baseless the hope must be.
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