upon the walls is more favorable than that of the
French engineers, who did not consider that the damage done necessarily
entailed a capitulation; but seamen and engineers have rarely agreed in
their opinions upon this subject.

The same zeal which led Farragut to this minute inspection of the
battered fortress carried him also on board one of the French ships,
while she still remained cleared for action, to note matters of detail
which differed from those then prevalent in his own service. Of these he
made a very full representation, and one much in disparagement of the
United States Navy; which, since the glories of 1812 and the first
re-organization and development procured for it by the popular favor
consequent upon its victories, had been allowed to drop into a state of
backwardness, as regards the material, similar to that which followed
the Civil War, and from which it is but now beginning to emerge. The
points which he noted, though most important to that rapidity and order
upon which the efficient service of a ship's batteries depends, would
have now no attraction for the unprofessional reader; nor for the
professional, except as matters of antiquarian interest. They showed
that spirit of system, of scientific calculation, of careful adaptation
of means to ends, which have ever distinguished the French material for
naval war, except when the embarrassments of the treasury have prevented
the adoption of expensive improvements--a spirit which for over a
century made the French ships the models which their usually victorious
rivals were fain to copy. "The English and ourselves may affect to
despise the French by sea," wrote Farragut to Barron, "but depend upon
it, sir, they are in science far ahead of us both, and when England
next meets France upon the ocean she will find a different enemy from
that of the last war. Of all this I know you have seen much in theory,
but I have seen it tested in practice."

The substance of Farragut's letter to Barron deals with matters which
the progress of time and the accompanying advances in naval science have
now made obsolete; but the spirit which inspired the letter and
accumulated the materials for it can never become obsolete. It was then,
and it is now, the indication of a man keeping abreast of his time and
awake to its necessities; it held then, as it does now, the promise of
one who, when occasion arose, would have his faculties in readiness, by
constant training, to