A feeling of joyous confidence reigned among the volunteers; they were going to take the field and fight for their big brother. The racial feeling, so strong in every white man, had been aroused and could withstand any Mongolian attack. By October the first steamers of volunteers left for America. As there were no Japanese or Chinese spies left, and as the government kept a strict watch on the entire news and telegraph service, the departure of the steamers remained concealed from the enemy. As Japanese ships were cruising in the Straits of Magellan, the route via Suez was chosen, and in due course the steamers arrived safely at Hampton Roads.
Wherever the conscience of the Anglo-Saxon race was not wrapped in bales of cotton and in stock quotations, wherever the feeling of Anglo-Saxon solidarity still inspired the people, there was a stir. And so the objections of the London government were not heeded in the colonies.
Why should the citizen of Canada, of British Columbia, care for Downing Street's consideration for India, when he was suffering commercially from the yellow invasion just as much as the citizen of the United States, and when he realized that he would surely be the next victim if the Japanese should be victorious this time?
In this epoch-making hour of the world's history, England had neglected her bounden duty, because she was indissolubly bound to Japan. By the same right with which George Washington had once raised the flag, crowds of men streamed across the frontier from Canada and British Columbia, and by that same right Ottawa now categorically demanded the removal of the Japanese ships from the harbor of Esquimault. "They must either lower their flag and disarm, or they must leave the harbor!" wrote the Canadian papers, and the Canadian Secretary of State, William Mackenzie, couched the protest which he sent to London in similar terms. It was recognized in London that threats were no longer of avail in the face of this spontaneous enthusiasm. England had staked much and lost.
Canadian and Australian regiments were soon found fighting side by side with their American brothers. And now at last, with the united good-will of two continents behind us, there was a fair prospect of the early realization of the boastful words uttered by the American press at the beginning of the war: "We'll drive the yellow monkeys into the Pacific."
Chapter XXI
DARK SHADOWS
Autumn had come, and all was serene at the seat of war, except for a few insignificant skirmishes. Slowly, far more slowly than the impatience of our people could stand, the new bodies of troops were prepared for action, and before we could possibly think of again assuming the offensive, winter was at the door.
In the middle of November, three Japanese orderlies, bearing a white flag of truce, rode up to our outposts, and a few days later it was learned from Washington that the enemy had offered to make peace, the terms of which, however, remained a mystery for a short time, until they were ultimately published in the capital.