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The Trent Affair Student’s name: Course name Student’s number: Due Date: Trent Affair The Trent affair took place in 1861 and it involved the Great Britain and the United States. It was a political crisis that saw the two countries almost go to war. On 8th November, U.S Navy Captain Charles Wilkes ordered for the seizure of Confederate envoys from the British ship which was neutral, meaning they had not taken any side in the civil war. The neutral ship was on its way sailing to Europe to seek support from the south i.e. France and England to help in the civil war. The act of U.S arresting the neutral ship caused the Great Britain to charge her for infringement of international law since Britain was neutral to the civil war and had not yet sided. When the captain captured John Slidell and James Murray Mason, the two commissioners, the Britain government responded by protesting on the arrest and viewed it as illegal. She demanded that the US apologizes to her formally and liberates the Confederate envoys immediately. On the other hand, the US reacted by celebrating this as a victory in opposition to the Confederacy following a defeat at the Bull Run (Warren, 1981). The two countries did not want to go to war but due to the US breach of Britain’s neutrality and diplomatic agreement of Trent affair trigged crises which led to both countries possibly going to war. Britain stopped weapons to America, sent more ships to Western Atlantic and also she sent troops to Canada in preparation for war. France took a stand to support Britain on its plan to attack America. It put into place a plan
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