Nicholl, driven into his last entrenchments, and not able to fight personally in the cause, resolved to fight with money.
He published, therefore, in the Richmond _Inquirer_ a series of wagers, conceived in these terms, and on an increasing scale:
No. 1 ($1,000).-- That the necessary funds for the experiment of the Gun Club will not be forthcoming.
No. 2 ($2,000).-- That the operation of casting a cannon of 900 feet is impracticable, and cannot possibly succeed.
No. 3 ($3,000).-- That is it impossible to load the Columbiad, and that the pyroxyle will take fire spontaneously under the pressure of the projectile.
No. 4 ($4,000).-- That the Columbiad will burst at the first fire.
No. 5 ($5,000).-- That the shot will not travel farther than six miles, and that it will fall back again a few seconds after its discharge.
It was an important sum, therefore, which the captain risked in his invincible obstinacy. He had no less than $15,000 at stake.
Notwithstanding the importance of the challenge, on the 19th of May he received a sealed packet containing the following superbly laconic reply: "BALTIMORE, October 19.
"Done.
"BARBICANE."
CHAPTER XI
FLORIDA AND TEXAS
One question remained yet to be decided; it was necessary to choose a favorable spot for the experiment. According to the advice of the Observatory of Cambridge, the gun must be fired perpendicularly to the plane of the horizon, that is to say, toward the zenith. Now the moon does not traverse the zenith, except in places situated between [email protected] and [email protected] of lat.i.tude. It became, then, necessary to determine exactly that spot on the globe where the immense Columbiad should be cast.
On the 20th of October, at a general meeting of the Gun Club, Barbicane produced a magnificent map of the United States.
"Gentlemen," said he, in opening the discussion, "I presume that we are all agreed that this experiment cannot and ought not to be tried anywhere but within the limits of the soil of the Union.
Now, by good fortune, certain frontiers of the United States extend downward as far as the 28th parallel of the north lat.i.tude.
If you will cast your eye over this map, you will see that we have at our disposal the whole of the southern portion of Texas and Florida."
It was finally agreed, then, that the Columbiad must be cast on the soil of either Texas or Florida. The result, however, of this decision was to create a rivalry entirely without precedent between the different towns of these two States.
The 28th parallel, on reaching the American coast, traverses the peninsula of Florida, dividing it into two nearly equal portions.
Then, plunging into the Gulf of Mexico, it subtends the arc formed by the coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana; then skirting Texas, off which it cuts an angle, it continues its course over Mexico, crosses the Sonora, Old California, and loses itself in the Pacific Ocean. It was, therefore, only those portions of Texas and Florida which were situated below this parallel which came within the prescribed conditions of lat.i.tude.
Florida, in its southern part, reckons no cities of importance; it is simply studded with forts raised against the roving Indians.
One solitary town, Tampa Town, was able to put in a claim in favor of its situation.
In Texas, on the contrary, the towns are much more numerous and important. Corpus Christi, in the county of Nueces, and all the cities situated on the Rio Bravo, Laredo, Comalites, San Ignacio on the Web, Rio Grande City on the Starr, Edinburgh in the Hidalgo, Santa Rita, Elpanda, Brownsville in the Cameron, formed an imposing league against the pretensions of Florida.
So, scarcely was the decision known, when the Texan and Floridan deputies arrived at Baltimore in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time.
From that very moment President Barbicane and the influential 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 circ.u.mference 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 Florida both incorporated into the Union in 1845?"
"Undoubtedly," replied the _Times_; "but we have belonged to the Americans ever since 1820."
"Yes!" returned the _Tribune_; "after having been Spaniards or English for two hundred years, you were sold to the United States for five million dollars!"
"Well! and why need we blush for that? Was not Louisiana bought from Napoleon in 1803 at the price of sixteen million dollars?"
"Scandalous!" roared the Texas deputies. "A wretched little strip of country like Florida to dare to compare itself to Texas, who, in place of selling herself, a.s.serted her own independence, drove out the Mexicans in March 2, 1846, and declared herself a federal republic after the victory gained by Samuel Houston, on the banks of the San Jacinto, over the troops of Santa Anna!-- a country, in fine, which voluntarily annexed itself to the United States of America!"
"Yes; because it was afraid of the Mexicans!" replied Florida.
"Afraid!" From this moment the state of things became intolerable.
A sanguinary encounter seemed daily imminent between the two parties in the streets of Baltimore. It became necessary to keep an eye upon the deputies.
President Barbicane knew not which way to look. Notes, doc.u.ments, letters full of menaces showered down upon his house. Which side ought he to take? As regarded the appropriation of the soil, the facility of communication, the rapidity of transport, the claims of both States were evenly balanced. As for political prepossessions, they had nothing to do with the question.
This dead block had existed for some little time, when Barbicane resolved to get rid of it all at once. He called a meeting of his colleagues, and laid before them a proposition which, it will be seen, was profoundly sagacious.
"On carefully considering," he said, "what is going on now between Florida and Texas, it is clear that the same difficulties will recur with all the towns of the favored State.
The rivalry will descend from State to city, and so on downward.
Now Texas possesses eleven towns within the prescribed conditions, which will further dispute the honor and create us new enemies, while Florida has only one. I go in, therefore, for Florida and Tampa Town."
This decision, on being made known, utterly crushed the Texan deputies. Seized with an indescribable fury, they addressed threatening letters to the different members of the Gun Club by name. The magistrates had but one course to take, and they took it. They chartered a special train, forced the Texans into it whether they would or no; and they quitted the city with a speed of thirty miles an hour.
Quickly, however, as they were despatched, they found time to hurl one last and bitter sarcasm at their adversaries.
Alluding to the extent of Florida, a mere peninsula confined between two seas, they pretended that it could never sustain the shock of the discharge, and that it would "bust up" at the very first shot.
"Very well, let it bust up!" replied the Floridans, with a brevity of the days of ancient Sparta.