It entirely shuts up and
commands our harbor, one of our chief Eastern harbors and war
stations, where we keep a flag and cannon and some soldiers, and
where the customs officers look out for smuggling. There is no way
to get into our own harbor, except in favorable conditions of the
tide, without begging the courtesy of a passage through British
waters. Why is England permitted to stretch along down our coast in
this straggling and inquisitive manner? She might almost as well own
Long Island. It was impossible to prevent our cheeks mantling with
shame as we thought of this, and saw ourselves, free American
citizens, land-locked by alien soil in our own harbor.
We ought to have war, if war is necessary to possess Campobello and
Deer Islands; or else we ought to give the British Eastport. I am
not sure but the latter would be the better course.
With this war spirit in our hearts, we sailed away into the British
waters of the Bay of Fundy, but keeping all the morning so close to
the New Brunswick shore that we could see there was nothing on it;
that is, nothing that would make one wish to land. And yet the best
part of going to sea is keeping close to the shore, however tame it
may be, if the weather is pleasant. A pretty bay now and then, a
rocky cove with scant foliage, a lighthouse, a rude cabin, a level
land, monotonous and without noble forests,--this was New Brunswick
as we coasted along it under the most favorable circumstances.
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