Note 39 — Chapter XIX

The China case was a kind of Trent case reversed. In 1861 the American ship San Jacinto stopped the British vessel Trent and took off Mason and Slidell, Confederate commissioners to Great Britain. Similarly a British ship, in 1916, stopped an American ship, the China, and removed several German subjects. As the British quickly saw the analogy, and made suitable amends, the old excitement over the Trent was not duplicated in the recent war.