CHAPTER XV: Rude Britannia, Crude Columbia.
It may have been ten years ago, it may have been fifteen--and just how long it was before the war makes no matter--that I received an invitation to join a society for the promotion of more friendly relations between the United States and England.
"No, indeed," I said to myself.
Even as I read the note, hostility rose in me.

Refusal sprang to my lips before my reason had acted at all.

I remembered George III.

I remembered the Civil War.

The ancient grudge, the anti-English complex, had been instantly set fermenting in me.