NASSAU AND THE BLOCKADE RUNNERS. 267 
been made by the Bahama government, and we doubt if many 
of the islanders know where it occurred—but they will not 
be permitted to forget the day the Prince of Wales was born, 
nor the time his sailor-boy brother first trod the white lime- 
stone streets of their little colonial capital. This is the result, 
no doubt, of governmental policy. Distance—the mists of space 
—impress the African mind, and Victoria’s golden crown, on the 
other side of the broad Atlantic, reflects a mystic light, like that 
of ‘“‘the great white throne” beyond the limits of time. The 
nearness of the Bahamas to the United States—the intervening 
waters of the Gulf of Florida being to some extent spanned by 
a bridge of ocean steamers—tends more and more to strongly 
bind them to the States by the strong ties of commercial inter- 
course. At least a hundred Americans visit those islands for a 
longer or shorter time, to one Englishman, and republican in- 
fluences, if not studiously counteracted, would soon predominate. 
The British ministry and aristocracy during the late civil war 
in the United States, from political and commercial considera- 
tions, openly and heartily sympathized with the South, and great- 
ly prolonged the war by the aid and comfort they rendered the 
would-be founders of a great slave-holding oligarchy. Nassau 
practically became a most important naval station and depot of 
supplies for the Southern Confederacy. 
Under the friendly flag of Great Britain, sedeasiantae and 
olockade runners held high carnival upon the “Isle of June.” 
Commanding, as New Providence to a limited extent does, our 
South Atlantic coast, the approaches to the West India Islands, 
and the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, Nassau is very favorably 
situated to do great damage te our commercial marine in time 
of war; and the Confederates, with the British government and 
aristocracy on their side, were not tardy in availing themselves of 
its advantages. The wildest excitement prevailed. Steamers 
