'What effect would secession have on your business?' I asked the Colonel, after a while.
'A favorable one. I should ship my crop direct to Liverpool and London, instead of selling it to New York middlemen.'
'But is not the larger portion of the turpentine crop consumed at the North?'
'Oh, yes. We should have to deal with the Yankees anyhow, but we should do as little with them as possible.'
'Suppose the Yankees object to your setting up by yourselves, and put your ports under lock and key?'
'They won't do that, and if they did England would break the blockade.'
'We might rap John Bull over the knuckles in that event,' I replied.
'Well, suppose you did, what then?'
'Merely, England would not have a ship in six months to carry your cotton. A war with her would ruin the shipping trade of the North. Our marine would seek employment at privateering, and soon sweep every British merchant ship from the ocean. We could afford to give [pg 191] up ten years' trade with you, and have to put down seccession by force, for the sake of a year's brush with John Bull.'
'But, my good friend, where would the British navy be all the while?'