Frederick A. Ober

“ The name of Putnam, as Washington declared, is not forgotten—nor will be, until time shall be no more.
"He dared to lead
Where any dared to follow. In their need
Men looked to him.
A tower of strength was Israel Putnam's name,
A rally-word for patriot acclaim;
It meant resolve, and hope, and bravery,
And steady cheerfulness and constancy.
And if, in years to come, men should forget
That only freedom makes a nation great;
If men grow less as wealth accumulates,
Till gold becomes the life-blood of our States ”

“ Among those who, though powerful and warlike, Balboa had overcome and compelled to sue for peace was the mountain cacique Tubanamá. He was blunderingly attacked, by orders of Pedrarias, and not only repulsed the Spaniards from his stronghold, but drove them, bootless, back to Darien, where the survivors arrived breathless and panic-stricken. Stripping the slain Spaniards as they lay in the forest, Tubanamá displayed their bloody shirts on poles as banners, and marched his warriors around the walls, striking terror and dismay to the hearts of all within the settlement. ”

“ Judging from the stability of his position in Danvers, it would seem that young Farmer Putnam was established for life. He had land enough to satisfy any ordinary cultivator of that period, and a comfortable house in which dwelt with him wife and child, to cheer him by their presence. But the future patriot felt within him an ardent thirst for adventure. He longed for a wider field, and though to all appearances firmly rooted in the soil of Salem Village, he was already thinking of transplanting himself and family into that of another region. ”

“ No longer compelled to maintain a large standing army, or to send abroad the flower of her young manhood, Spain can devote to agriculture and manufactures, to art and literature, the forces that were worse than wasted in camp and on the battlefield.
She has no worse enemies than those of her own household; but still on her borders rises the fateful apparition of Don Carlos the pretender. In time, perhaps, if the lessons of the war are heeded, the Spaniard may be able to perceive the absurdity of that boastful Spanish proverb, “Whoever says Spain, says everything!” ”

“ You are a liar, Pedro Pedrarias, and were I but free, with my good sword in hand, fain would I render you unable to utter more false statements against me and those who were once true to me!"
"Ha! Would you, then? Here, jailer, double this fellow's irons, and if he protest, weight him to the floor with them! My throat you would slit, eh? Old as I am, you will find that when it comes to the cutting of throats, Don Pedrarias de Avila needs not rely upon his own unaided sword. There is one in my employ who wields a more potent weapon—mark you—and that is Gomez, the headsman. ”

“ But for a long time all but a sagacious few continued to regard Cathay as a region distinct from any of the new-found Indies; while map-makers, well on into the seventeenth century, continued to represent it as a great country lying entirely to the north of China and stretching to the Arctic Sea. It was Cathay, with its outlying island of Zipangu, that Columbus sought to reach by sailing westward, penetrated as he was by his intense conviction of the smallness of the earth and of the vast extension of Asia to the eastward. ”

“ For they had conquered themselves as well as the enemy, whom they had met with calm confidence; and had they been better supplied with ammunition, that enemy would never have seen the inside of the redoubt and the breastworks.
British bayonets defeated them finally, as opposed to clubbed muskets and stones cast by despairing men, whose very last thought was of retreat. Many and many a man besides Prescott and Putnam, Stark and Pomeroy, Knowlton and McClary, raged like wolves that day at its ending, to find themselves compelled to accept a retreat as the alternative of capture or death. ”

“ Was it chance alone that directed the events of war so that the West Indies should be the scene of final conflict—the Antilles, which Spain had depopulated in the first century of her rule, and made desert places of fair isles which once supported millions of innocent and happy inhabitants?
Was it strange that a nation guilty of such enormities should lack the moral courage, the sound heart and core of integrity, necessary to withstand the impact of another nation goaded by the spectacle of those iniquities to righteous indignation? ”

“ He was at war with Ponca, and that was enough to provoke his ire, so he took the field with a swarm of ferocious savages, and thought to frighten the Spaniards by a display of force. He and his warriors were armed with spears, bows and arrows, and two-handed battle-axes made of wood, but almost as hard and as heavy as iron. They thought themselves invincible, in their ignorance of warfare as conducted by the Christian, and, yelling furiously, poured upon the Spaniards like a mountain torrent. ”

“ To whomsoever the credit may be given—whether to the man who conceived the idea, or to him who developed it, and whether or not Columbus intentionally appropriated the honor and glory exclusively—by the irony of fate, there stood a man at Toscanelli's elbow, as it were, when he wrote to the Genoese, who was destined to rob him of his great discovery's richest reward. This man was Amerigo Vespucci, after whom—though unsuggested by him and unknown to him—the continents of America were named, by strangers, before Christopher Columbus had lain a year in his grave! ”

“ He reminds us of nothing so much as of a vile and venomous spider intrenched in his web at Madrid, whence radiate threads of communication to the confines of his realm—to Naples and the Netherlands, to Africa and the Americas—all connecting with the capital where sits this arch-enemy of mankind, absorbing the life-blood of his innumerable victims. This human spider rioted in scenes of blood, yet rarely shed blood directly by his own hand ”

“ Those who remained at Darien were soon reduced to the last extremity of hunger and despair. They wandered through the streets of Antigua begging for food, and once-wealthy cavaliers of proudest lineage might have been seen bartering their rich ornaments and vestments for a few mouthfuls of cassava bread. Some, who had never before labored with their hands, hired themselves out as wood-cutters or burden-bearers, merely to sustain existence, while others, in the pangs of starvation, fed on grass and the leaves of trees. ”

“ His one cry was, "fight, fight; bring our men into contact with the enemy, in order that they shall gain confidence and learn that they are really their equals, and more than that. Fight and entrench, entrench and fight; run away when it comes to a pinch, fight while you run; but fight!"
"But will our men stand before an enemy?" queried the timid ones. "Yes, they will," declared Putnam with a laugh. "Our troops are not all afraid of their heads, though very much concerned for their legs, and if you cover these they'll fight forever!" ”

“ It is not certain, in truth, that he had not connived at Vespucci's entering the service of Portugal for a time, as, in view of his return to Spain, he received all the benefit of his experience. It was by means of Vespucci's voyage, most probably, that it was definitely ascertained how far Portugal had encroached upon territory assigned by the pope to her great rival, Spain. Deep and crafty was the diplomacy of King Ferdinand, and it is within the bounds of probability that he himself sent the silent, observant, faithful Vespucci to take service with King Emanuel for a season. ”

“ Some who returned were suffering from fevers and wounds received in conflicts with the Indians; but notwithstanding, it was declared that the expedition of Balboa to the shores of the great Southern Sea was the most successful of any that had ever been made in America. And when the plunder was displayed: gold by the thousand pieces, pearls by the hundred, brought in by scores and scores of captives who would serve in the future as slaves, the transports of the people knew no bounds. He was hailed as "Conqueror of the Mountains, Pacificator of the Isthmus, and Discoverer of the Austral Sea." ”

“ The city of Santiago is already a notable object-lesson of the benefits of American rule, where soldiers from the Cuban army and impoverished pacificos have been generously paid by the military governor to assist at the work of reform.
America has shown that her declaration of sympathy with suffering humanity in the Spanish islands: in the Philippines as well as in Cuba, were not idle words spoken for effect upon the outside world, but the voicing of a principle which has been consistently adhered to, not only through the din of battle but in the hush of peace. ”

“ Like lions making for their lairs in the hills, Prescott and Putnam gave way at last before the overwhelming forces of the enemy; and, after passing through the storm of cannon-balls still hurtling across the Neck, they had leisure to count up their losses; for the British were too exhausted, too much in awe of their prowess, even, to pursue. ”