If a broad pennant means anything, it means this: a piece of bunting to designate an admiral’s ship or boat in squadron sailing, or in harbor: a cynosure for all the other vessels, because from the ship that wears it, orders are signaled and dispositions directed; but when it is taken from a main-truck, or from the commander-in-chief’s boat, to be boom-a-laddyed on shore in a procession, it becomes meaningless, if not ridiculous; a land officer in the field had better fly a distinct flag over his marquee; and an American commodore, who leaves his ship to land in an enemy’s or friend’s country, had better be provided by the navy department with a kind of “white plume,” like that of “Harry of Navarre,” or “the broad pennant” had better be declared an oriflamme; but all true Americans have a weakness, which runs in this wise: that the stars and stripes, are oriflamme enough.
But it may be, that the commodore may be allowed to explain—to give some reason for boom-a-laddying ashore with his broad pennant, and having a sword-bearer to walk behind with his trusty blade in the streets of Simoda. In his notes to the secretary of the navy, of his second visit to Japan he says:—
“I have adopted the two extremes—by an exhibition of great pomp, when it could be properly displayed, and by avoiding it, when such pomp would be inconsistent with the spirit of our institutions.”
This pompatic paragraph appears rather a non sequitur; unless it can be shown when an exhibition of great pomp is consistent with the spirit of our institutions.
The entente cordiale being established with the “kingdom of Loo-Choo,” presents of agricultural implements and a hand cotton-gin, were made to the authorities, who returned air-plants and birds. A stone from the island was also procured for the Washington monument.
The commodore having entertained the regent and the authorities on board the flag-ship Mississippi with a supper and Ethiopian performance, the Lexington sailed for Hong Kong on the 15th, and two days after—the anniversary of our first departure from Japan—we bid good-by to the Loo-Chooans, as much, no doubt, to their delight as our own.
In getting off the Amakarimas, the Powhatan parted company with us, bound for Amoy and Ningpo, and in four days we had a Chinese pilot on board, and the next dropped anchor in the harbor of Hong Kong, China, from whose mail facilities we had been absent over half a year.
CHAPTER XV.
Letters: considering the rapid occurrence of events of moment now-a-days, and the lightning transmission of intelligence, it was with joy we got letters on our arrival at Hong Kong, having been for over half a year, so far as news was concerned, inhumed in a remote country. The official news was, that we were ordered home by way of California and South America, at which all were overjoyed; and the commodore was granted permission to return to the United States via Europe, at government expense. Many a poor fellow got letters that had been waiting for him in Hong Kong a long time, and at the same time letters from others of later date, that told that the writers of the former ones could never write again.