An incident connected with the naval action off the Falkland
Islands which has touched us deeply, and which we are sure will touch the whole of our countrymen, has been the chorus of delight—no other phrase will do—with which the victory has been received in America. Blood may be thicker than water, but salt water and blood mixed, where the English-speaking race is concerned, carry all before them. Though the Americans on the business side of their beads are rightly determined to maintain a strict neutrality, that neutrality cannot resist the strain of a sea fight. There is something in that which stirs the blood of the Anglo-Saxon beyond all control, whether he lives on this or the other side of the Atlantic, and whether he is buried in the heart of the continent at Chicago or lives in New York within the sound of Atlantic waves. In their hearts the Americans, as their papers show, regard a British victory at sea as their victory also. One's only regret is that Admiral Mahan could not have lived to see the day.
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