A diplomatic crisis in 1837 involved the United States, Britain, and the Canadian independence movement when William Lyon Mackenzie, along with Americans and Canadian rebels, fled with his ship to an island in the Niagara River. British forces boarded the ship, killed an American, burned the ship and sent it over Niagara Falls, claiming it was an act of self-defense. What was the name of the ship, which lent its name to the test for self-defense that remains a part of international law to this day? The principle says that the necessity for self-defense must be "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation."
Caroline