Chapter 11 - Page 2

members of the Gun Club were besieged day and night by
formidable claims. If seven cities of Greece contended for
the honor of having given birth to a Homer, here were two entire
States threatening to come to blows about the question of a cannon.

The rival parties promenaded the streets with arms in their hands;
and at every occasion of their meeting a collision was to be
apprehended which might have been attended with disastrous results.
Happily the prudence and address of President Barbicane averted
the danger. These personal demonstrations found a division in
the newspapers of the different States. The New York _Herald_ and
the _Tribune_ supported Texas, while the _Times_ and the _American
Review_ espoused the cause of the Floridan deputies. The members
of the Gun Club could not decide to which to give the preference.

Texas produced its array of twenty-six counties; Florida replied
that twelve counties were better than twenty-six in a country
only one-sixth part of the size.

Texas plumed itself upon its 330,000 natives; Florida, with a
far smaller territory, boasted of being much more densely
populated with 56,000.

The Texans, through the columns of the _Herald_ claimed that
some regard should be had to a State which grew the best cotton
in all America, produced the best green oak for the service of
the navy, and contained the finest oil, besides iron mines, in
which the yield was fifty per cent. of pure metal.

To this the _American Review_ replied that the soil of Florida,
although not equally rich, afforded the best conditions for the
moulding and casting of the Columbiad, consisting as it did of
sand and argillaceous earth.

"That may be all very well," replied the Texans; "but you must
first get to this country. Now the communications with Florida
are difficult, while the coast of Texas offers the bay of
Galveston, which possesses a circumference of fourteen leagues,
and is capable of containing the navies of the entire world!"

"A pretty notion truly," replied the papers in the interest of
Florida, "that of Galveston bay _below the 29th parallel!_
Have we not got the bay of Espiritu Santo, opening precisely upon
_the 28th degree_, and by which ships can reach Tampa Town by
direct route?"

"A fine bay; half choked with sand!"

"Choked yourselves!" returned the others.

Thus the war went on for several days, when Florida endeavored
to draw her adversary away on to fresh ground; and one morning
the _Times_ hinted that, the enterprise being essentially
American, it ought not to be attempted upon other than purely
American territory.

To these words Texas retorted, "American! are we not as much so
as you? Were not Texas and