When Nelson left, as you know, he turned our affairs over to the British, an English-speaking, friendly, great Power, which could and would help our nationals in their desperate plight. Behold the result! Last night we dined on the Essex, in our refugee clothes. Sir Christopher, looking very handsome in cool, spotless linen, met us at the gangway with real cordiality and interest.
His first words after his welcome were, “I have good news for you.”
“What is it?” we asked, eagerly. “We have heard nothing.”
“Carden is going to arrange to get out a refugee-train of several hundred Americans on Monday or Tuesday, and I have this afternoon sent off Tweedie [commander of the Essex] with two seven-foot marines and a native guide to accompany the convoy down. He is to get up by hook or crook. He will go by train, if there is a train, by horse if there isn’t, and on foot, if he can’t get horses.”
You can imagine the love feast that followed as we went down to dinner. We were proceeding with a very nice piece of mutton (Admiral Badger had sent a fine, juicy saddle over to Sir Christopher that morning) when a telegram came—I think from Spring-Rice. Anyway, the four Englishmen read it and looked rather grave. After a pause Sir Christopher said, “They might as well learn it from us.” What do you think that telegram contained? The news that American interests had been transferred from Sir Lionel’s hands into those of Cardoza, the Brazilian minister! Of course I said to Sir Christopher, “Our government very naturally wants to compliment and sustain good relations with South America, and this is an opportunity to emphasize the fact,” but it was rather a damper to our love feast.
Well, we have taken our affairs and the lives of many citizens out of the hands of a willing, powerful, and resourceful nation and put them into the hands of a man who, whatever Power he represents, has not the practical means to carry out his kind desires or friendly intentions. I doubt if Huerta knows him more than by sight. Washington has made up its mind about Carden and the English rôle in Mexico, and no deeds of valor on the part of Carden will make any difference. Washington won’t have him. Sir Christopher Cradock, here in a big battle-ship in the harbor, is willing and able to co-operate with Sir Lionel, the head of a powerful legation in Mexico City, for the relief of our nationals in sore plight and danger of life; but apparently that has nothing to do with the case. Washington is relentless.
The Essex shows between eighty and ninety “wounds,” the results of the fire from the Naval Academy on Wednesday. Paymaster Kimber, whom they took me in to see after dinner, was in bed, shot through both feet and crippled for life. The ship was an “innocent bystander,” with a vengeance. In Sir Christopher’s saloon, or rather, Captain Watson’s saloon, were hung two slippers (one of pink satin and the other of white) which had been found at the Naval Academy after the fight—dumb witnesses of other things than war. The officers said the Academy was a horrid sight. Those boys had taken their mattresses from their beds, put them up at the windows, and fired over the top; but when the fire from the ships began these flimsy defenses were as nothing. There were gallant deaths that day. May their brave young souls rest in peace. I don’t want to make invidious distinctions, but in Mexico the youngest are often the brightest and noblest. Later there is apt to be a discouraging amount of dross in the gold.
I keep thinking of Captain Tweedie, en route to Mexico City to help bring out American women and children. When he gets there he will find that rescue isn’t any of his business!
Yesterday afternoon the North Dakota came in. We saw her smoke far out at sea, and she was a great sight as she dropped anchor outside the breakwater. I was looking through the powerful glass on Captain Simpson’s bridge. Her blue-jackets and marines were massed in orderly lines, doubtless with their hearts beating high at the idea of active service. Lieutenant Stevens, who was slightly wounded in the chest on Wednesday, came back to the ship yesterday. He is a young bridegroom of last autumn and has been here since January. The “cheerful, friendly” bullet is in his chest in a place where he can always carry it. I understand that when he was wounded he was on the outskirts of the town, and that he and another wounded man, themselves on the verge of collapse, carried an unconscious comrade several kilometers to the hospital. But who shall record all the gallant deeds of the 21st and 22d of April?[18]
“Minnesota,” April 26th. 3 P.M.