the knowledge of the way you
would suffer and worry. I argued it out that it was selfish in me to
weigh my getting laughed at and paragraphed as the war correspondent
that always Turned Back against a month of uneasiness for you, but
later I saw I could not do it much as I love you for the element of
danger to me is non-existent; it is merely an exciting adventure and
you will have to believe me and not worry but be a Spartan mother. I
would not count being laughed at and the loss of my own self respect if
I really thought there was great danger, but I do not. You will not
lose me and if I go now I can sit still next time and say "I have done
better things than that." If I had not gone it would have meant that I
would have had to have done just that much harder a stunt next time to
make people forget that I had failed in this one. Now do cheer up and
believe in the luck of Richard Harding Davis and the British Army. We
have carte blanche from The Journal to buy or lease any boat on the
coast and I rocked them for $1000 in advance payment because of the
delay over the Vamoose.

I am so happy at thinking I am going, I could not have faced anyone had
I not, although we had nothing to do with the failure, we tried to
cross fairly in the damn tub and it was her captain who put back. I
lay out on the deck and cried when he refused to go ahead, we had
waited so long. The Cubans and Remington and Michelson had put on all
their riding things but fortunately I had not and so was spared that
humiliation. What I don't know about the Fine Art of Filibustering now
is unnecessary. I find many friends of my Captain Boynton or "Capt.
Burke." Tonight the officers of the Raleigh give me a grand dinner at
which I wear a dress suit and make speeches--they are the best chaps I
ever met in the Navy. Lots of love and best wishes to Dad and to Nora
for a happy, happy New Year. You know me and you know my conscience
but it would not let me go back in order to save you anxiety so you
won't think me selfish. God bless you.

DICK.

KEY WEST, January 2nd, 1897.

DEAR FAMILY:

I have learned here that the first quality needed to make a great
filibuster is Patience, it is not courage, or resources or a knowledge
of the Cuban Coast line, it is patience. Anybody can run a boat into a
dark bayou and dump rifles on the beach and scurry away to sea again
but only heroes can sit for a month on a hotel porch or at the end of a
wharf,