"
"That's a fact!" interrupted Hunt. "Americans have always been
forbearing at the start; but let them get once thoroughly roused and
they make things hot enough for the aggressors."
"So they do," said Max, "and so I think they always will; I hope so,
anyhow; for I don't believe it's right for any nation to allow any of
its people to be so dreadfully wronged and ill-treated as thousands of
our poor sailors were, by the English, before the war of 1812 taught
them better. I don't believe the mass of the English people approved,
but they couldn't keep their aristocracy--who hated republicanism, and
wanted always to continue superior in station and power to the mass of
their countrymen and ours--from oppressing and abusing our poor sailors,
impressing, flogging, and ill-treating them in various ways, and to such
a degree that it makes one's blood boil in reading or thinking of it.
And I think it's right enough for one to be angry and indignant at such
wrongs to others."
"Of course it is," said Hunt; "and Americans always will resist
oppression--of themselves or their weaker brethren--and I glory in the
fact. What a fight that was of Macdonough's! Do you remember the
incident of the gamecock?"
"No; what was it?"
"It seems that one of the shots from the British vessel _Linnet_
demolished a hencoop on the deck of the _Saratoga_, releasing this
gamecock, and that he flew to a gun-slide, where he alighted, then
clapped his wings and crowed lustily.
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