[8] Acknowledgment is here due to Mr. Thomas G. Ford, once a professor at the Naval Academy, cordially remembered by the midshipmen who knew him there in the fifties. His article is in the issue of the Naval Institute Proceedings for June, 1906, which has just reached me. He attributes his information to the late Admiral Preble, almost the only American officer within my time who has had the instincts of an archæologist.
[9] Perhaps it is better to explain that there are three watches from 8 P.M. to 8 A.M.; the two watches into which the crew were divided had on alternate nights one watch, or two watches, on deck. This sybarite was foretasting two watches below.
[10] On referring to the file of the Times, I find that the forecast concerning Vicksburg occurred in the issue of July 1st. "It is not improbable we may hear that General Grant has been obliged to raise the siege of Vicksburg." It is surprising to note of how secondary importance the Vicksburg issue appears to have been thought at the time.
[11] Rhodes's History of the United States, vol. v., p. 99.
[12] I have here used the expression "harakiri," because so commonly understood among English—speaking readers. A Japanese correspondent has informed me that it is never used among the Japanese, with the signification we have attached to it. The proper word is "Seppuku."
[13] Official Record of the Union and Confederate Navies, Series I., iii., p. 722.
[14] Since this was written, I have been told by one of the officers of the Iroquois, Lieutenant—now Rear-Admiral—Nicoll Ludlow, that many years afterwards he saw the story of the Cayalti's captain, told by himself, in the Overland Monthly, of San Francisco. He had been allowed to go ashore to get provisions, and of course did not return.
[15] This is not the place for a discussion of commerce-destroying as a method of war; but having myself given, as I believe, historical demonstration that as a sole or principal resource, maintained by scattered cruisers only, it is insufficient, I wish to warn public opinion against the reaction, the return swing of the pendulum, seen by me with dismay, which would make it of no use at all, and under the plea of immunity to "private property," so called, would exempt from attack the maritime commerce of belligerents.
[16] "Is not patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?"—Johnson to the Earl of Chesterfield.