dence of character to have thought so clearly for himself at such
an age, and to have ventured to differ from standards which were then,
and for a long time afterward, implicitly accepted throughout the
service. The tradition of those days, being mainly oral, has nearly
disappeared; but fragments of it remain here and there in the minds of
those who, as youngsters thirty or forty years ago, were brought in
contact with men, then already elderly, who had had personal experience
of ships like the Washington. These stories, in their grotesque
severities, have almost the air of an extravaganza. It must, however, be
in justice remembered that they were the extravagances of a few among
the men who had brought the United States Navy to the high efficiency in
which it then was; and to whom, and not to either the people or the
Government of that day, was due the glorious record of 1812. A few of
them added to their military ardor and efficiency an undue amount of
that spirit of the good housekeeper which makes a home unbearable.
Farragut was aided to his wise conclusion by his previous experience in
the Essex, where a high state of efficiency was gained without wanton
sacrifice of comfort; for Porter, though a man of hasty temper, was ever
considerate of his crew. But for the naval officers of that day Farragut
throughout his life retained a profound admiration. Talking about them
at his dinner-table in New Orleans fifty years later, but a few days
before his famous passage of the Mobile forts, he said: "We have no
better seamen in the service to-day than those gallant fellows
Bainbridge, Decatur, Hull, Perry, Porter, and Charles Stewart; and," he
added, "I must not forget to mention McDonough, and poor unlucky
Lawrence, as splendid-looking a sailor as I ever saw. If I only had
their chance and could lay the Hartford alongside of an English ship, I
should like it better than fighting our own people." Some years later he
again expressed the same feelings to the same friend, to whom the author
is indebted for the communication of them. His own glorious career was
then finished, and his life's work lay open to the mature reflection of
his declining years, when he thus acknowledged his obligations to the
heroes of his boyhood. "Isaac Hull," he said, "was as good a seaman as
ever sailed a ship. If I have done the country any service afloat, it is
in no small degree owing to the ambition and enthusiasm he created in
me, when I was a you