Note 2 — Chapter XLII · THE WALLS OF ISOLATION SAPPED.

Inside the country, the frequent appearance of the foreign ships was the subject of everyday talk, and the news in this nation of gossips spread like a prairie fire, or a rolling avalanche. By the time the stories reached the northern provinces whole fleets of French ships lay off the coast. Their moral effect was something like that among the blacks in the Southern States during the civil war, when the “Lincoln gunboats” hove in sight. The people jestingly called the foreign vessels “The authorities down the River.” ↑