French Ensor Chadwick

“ The whistle may be going every twenty or thirty seconds, and the quartermaster posted to the leeward with the little canvas bag and the thermometer with which the sea is tested for temperature; all due precaution may be taken, and yet no warning come of the ice that is ahead. On a clear night a berg rising above the horizon will have the effulgence of a star; on a clear day it will notch the horizon with its dazzling whiteness; in a fog it looms up in the gray like a shadow upon a shadow, and is invisible till the ship is close upon it. ”

“ A deeper insult to a nation could scarcely have been offered. All the same, it ended only on the part of the administration in what may be called a fit of sulks known as the embargo, which from December, 1807, to March, 1809, took American commerce by the throat and forbade our merchant ships to go to sea. It was much as if a man should reduce himself to bread and water as a revenge against an enemy. ”

“ WHEN the breeze is piping free and the tide is running strong none but a master-seaman may be trusted to haul out of the Liverpool docks a great Atlantic liner. Should it be a leeward ebb, with the Mersey spinning under a flurry of squalls and snarling in angry eddies, a quick eye must mate a clear wit to make the trick a deft one. The manœuvre is always a delight to the mariner, let bo’s’ns, hopelessly spliced to such traditions as topsails reefed in stays bawl what they may about the dead days of seamanship. ”

“ The Chesapeake was taken to Halifax. Lawrence and Ludlow were buried there with every honor. The remains of the former were later taken to New York, where in the churchyard of old Trinity they now lie. Lawrence’s dying words: “Don’t give up the ship,” were later blazoned on a flag flown by Perry on Lake Erie, where the dead hero was to have his revenge, for hero he was, however mistaken in judgment. His fatal action was the ignoring of the value of preparation in war. Discipline and training are as necessary as valor, an axiom which our people are only too slow to learn. ”

“ When the storm breaks it is tremendous; in no other part of the world do winds blow harder or seas rise higher; lofty ships carry low sails hereabouts, and steamers frequently have to lie to.
The mad ocean is left astern when the ship enters the inside passage leading along the coast of Patagonia and the Straits of Magellan. Here the scene is one of unparalleled magnificence. High bare walls of stone, towering barren cliffs, lofty snow-capped peaks, weather-scarred mountains down whose furrowed sides extend steel-blue glaciers—all reveal nature in her most majestic and awe-inspiring form. ”

“ It was well that Providence had given America Washington who, when all things seemed to fail, held firm and carried us to victory. Without him the nation could not have survived the throes of birth. Calm and undismayed, he made up for the inefficiency of Congress, the lethargy of the states, the discontent of all. Whatever our national shortcomings—past, present, or future—America can ever be proud of having produced this king of men, the greatest character in history. ”

“ The next day the passengers come on board, and the company’s servants in the tenders and lighters gleefully escape, after banging about and muddling the baggage so mercilessly that state-room trunks yawn bruisedly in the holds, and huge chests, bursting with useless trophies of travel, lumber up your narrow quarters below—this, to the despair and tears of forlorn women who pursue the hapless purser with unrelenting fury when they learn that nothing can be unearthed until after the ship has left Queenstown, and that until then they must hopelessly shift for themselves. ”

“ The iron tools blister their hands, the roaring furnaces sear their bodies; their chests heave like those of spent swimmers, their eyes tingle in parched sockets—but work they must, there is no escape, no holiday in this maddening limbo. Steam must be kept up, or perhaps a173 cruel record must be lowered. Facing the furnaces, the hollow up-scooping of the stoker’s shovel echoes stridently on the iron floor, and these speed-makers pile coal on coal until the fire fairly riots, and, half blinded, they stagger backward for a cooling respite. ”

“ I had learned in Europe long before joining the United States that the respect we exact from foreigners is paid more to America afloat than to a continent they think as far off at least as the moon. They see our men-of-war and they know very well what they have done and, from the appearance and character of our officers, what they might do again—and there is [223] a tangibility in the deductions from knowledge and eyesight which beats books and statistics. ”

“ The Clyde is, in fact, like one of those heroic personages who triumph over natural disadvantages which to the common mind are insuperable, and its inferiority in depth and breadth has been counterbalanced by excellences in other directions. In the first place Glasgow is the natural outlet of a great mineral field, so that after iron and steel became the principal materials of the ship-builder, he could find them on the banks of the little river unburdened by the increased price asked for them when it has been necessary to carry them long distances. ”

“ Scarcely is there an American ship-of-war which has not to boast a victory over the British flag; scarcely one British ship in thirty or forty that has beaten an American. With the bravest seamen and the most powerful navy in the world, we retire from the contest when the balance of defeat is so heavily against us. ”

“ The escaping steam roars out of the copper-pipes riveted to the funnel; louder and shriller the whistle drives its warning through the obscurity which surrounds us. Then we move “Ahead!” once more, and at midnight all hope of seeing Queenstown is abandoned. The passengers retreat to their cabins, and the decks are left to the sailors and the officers, who come in and out of the ghostly atmosphere—their oil-skins dripping with moisture and shining momentarily in the lamp-light. Never for an instant does the captain leave the bridge; his cigar feeds its bluish wreaths to the fog ”

“ The French fleet of the Consular and Napoleonic period was now not only ill-officered, but through the constant blockades of the British had but little of the sea habit by which only a navy can be efficient. The Spanish navy had no real organization or other qualities of success under circumstances of even much worse neglect. The British ships, well officered, well manned, and with constant sea practice, had no real antagonists, for it is absurd to compare in efficiency such organizations as that which fought under Nelson at Trafalgar and those under Villeneuve and Gravina in the same battle. ”

“ Still, a new delight possesses everybody, and it grows as the hours fly, until at last, it may be at night, perhaps, some one bursts breathlessly into the crowded smoking-room or bar, and cries exultingly: “There she is, Fire Island Light, right over the starboard bow.” Joyous faces gather near the crowded bulwarks, and eager eyes hail with gladness the shining petals of that rose of flame which blossoms unfailingly above the shoaling waters; for the voyage is nearly over, and the morrow means to some the marvels of an unknown land, to others, luckiest and happiest of all, home and dear ones. ”

“ The Hornet, on the Montagu’s arrival, put to sea late in the evening unmolested.
The war had now lasted six months, and instead of the little American navy being swept from the sea, it had been a David to smite a Goliath. The capture of three British frigates in the three successive combats stirred Britain to the quick. Said the Pilot of London: “Five hundred merchantmen [taken] and three frigates! Can this be true? Will the English people read this unmoved? Any man who foretold such disasters this day last year would have been treated as a madman or a traitor. ”

“ Below, brawny, silent men stand at the levers, ready at an instant to stop and back, or go ahead, just as the emergency may direct. Outside the pilot-house the quarter-master strains his ears and peers nervously into the gloom, yet alert to pass any command given to the junior officer and to his messmate at the wheel. Signals from fog-whistles drift into them from other groping ships, and, at times, spectral hulls and ghostly sails loom close aboard, creeping out of the curtained night or slipping landward or seaward in search of hidden port or roadway. ”

“ The world recognized the birth of a new power upon the ocean, which the future was to reckon with, though America herself was slow to accept her new situation. We had, however, afloat in 1815, three line-of-battle ships, the Washington, Independence, and Franklin, and in this year we were to end, as has already been mentioned, our Barbary troubles forever by the action of Decatur in command of the largest fleet we were to have at sea for many years. We began a new life with a self-respect which had needed a war for its revival. ”

“ If the traveller has stayed in the same ship all the way from London, he has, by the time he arrives at Colombo, been 30 days en voyage and navigated a distance of 6,700 miles. By whatever line he has come, he should have enjoyed his life on board ship, for after the first day or two out from port acquaintances are made that rapidly ripen into good fellowship. Deck cricket, quoits, and cock-fighting enliven the forenoons; a novel and a nap wear away the afternoons; an innocent rubber with the ladies brightens the evenings ”

“ He will always stand out boldly as one of the most fearless spirits of the sea, and had he lived in the Napoleonic epoch he would have been met by Napoleon as a kindred soul who might have saved him the great misfortune of Trafalgar, which so changed the history of Europe and the world. ”

“ The love of record-breaking is universal. The performance of the Majestic on August 5, 1891, thrilled the people of every nation. Her triumph of crossing the Atlantic in 5 days, 18 hours, and 8 minutes was echoed round the world. Hardly had the echoes died out when her sister-ship—twin in size and type—the Teutonic, came into New York Harbor with a better record still. ”

“ Perhaps yet more would have come, for just as the war closed, the first war-steamer to be built for over ten years, the Fulton, was ready for sea. With a double hull [221] of such thickness as to be impervious to harm from any but the heaviest guns, moved by a wheel in the middle which was protected from shot, it seems almost a pity that she should not have been tried with her two 100-pound guns upon the ships blockading New York. But even as it was America had good reason to be well satisfied with the work of her navy. ”

“ A bird’s-eye view reveals great stacks of timber, iron, and steel; a net-work of rails which connect the works with all the principal lines converging at Glasgow; long brick sheds, and edging the water-front the launching-slips, where as many as fifteen vessels have been in course of construction at the same time. There the great hulls of many of the most famous Atlantic liners have been put together; this was the birthplace of all the new ships of the North German Lloyd line; of the Arizona, the Alaska, the Oregon, the Umbria, and the Etruria. ”

“ Thus ended, practically, the extraordinary career of piracy and slavery which through so many generations had been submitted to by Europe. It was not, however, until 1824, when the demand for continuance of tribute from Holland was successfully resisted, that Algiers finally dismissed the idea of return to her ancient ways.
It should be a proud memory to Americans that it was the American navy which first resisted and brought to terms the barbarous corsairs, so long the scourge of commerce and enslavers of white men. ”