We approached Eastport with a great deal of curiosity and considerable respect.  It had been one of the cities of the imagination.  Lying in the far east of our great territory, a military and even a sort of naval station, a conspicuous name on the map, prominent in boundary disputes and in war operations, frequent in telegraphic dispatches,—­we had imagined it a solid city, with some Oriental, if decayed, peculiarity, a port of trade and commerce.  The tourist informed me that Eastport looked very well at a distance, with the sun shining on its white houses.  When we landed at its wooden dock we saw that it consisted of a few piles of lumber, a sprinkling of small cheap houses along a sidehill, a big hotel with a flag-staff, and a very peaceful looking arsenal.  It is doubtless a very enterprising and deserving city, but its aspect that morning was that of cheapness, newness, and stagnation, with no compensating picturesqueness.  White paint always looks chilly under a gray sky and on naked hills.  Even in hot August the place seemed bleak.  The tourist, who went ashore with a view to breakfast, said that it would be a good place to stay in and go a-fishing and picnicking on Campobello Island.  It has another advantage for the wicked over other Maine towns.  Owing to the contiguity of British territory, the Maine Law is constantly evaded, in spirit.  The thirsty citizen or sailor has only to step into a boat and give it a shove or two across the narrow stream that separates the United States from Deer Island and land, when he can ruin his breath, and return before he is missed.

This might be a cause of war with, England, but it is not the most serious grievance here.  The possession by the British of the island of Campobello is an insufferable menace and impertinence.  I write with the full knowledge of what war is.  We ought to instantly dislodge the British from Campobello.  It entirely shuts up and commands our harbor, one of our chief Eastern harbors and war stations, where we keep a flag and cannon and some soldiers, and where the customs officers look out for smuggling.  There is no way to get into our own harbor, except in favorable conditions of the tide, without begging the courtesy of a passage through British waters.  Why is England permitted to stretch along down our coast in this straggling and inquisitive manner?  She might almost as well own Long Island.  It was impossible to prevent our cheeks mantling with shame as we thought of this, and saw ourselves, free American citizens, land-locked by alien soil in our own harbor.

We ought to have war, if war is necessary to possess Campobello and Deer Islands; or else we ought to give the British Eastport.  I am not sure but the latter would be the better course.