tension of mind and effort during four years of
overwrought activity was followed by a period of reaction, to which,
as far as the administration of the navy was concerned, the term
collapse would scarcely be misapplied. Of course, for a few years the
evil effects of this would not be observable in the military resources
of the government. Only the ravages of time could deprive us of the
hundreds of thousands of veterans just released from the active
practice of war; and the navy found itself in possession of a
respectable fleet, which, though somewhat over-specialized in order to
meet the peculiar conditions of the hostilities, was still fairly
modern. There was a body of officers fully competent in numbers and
ability, and comparatively young. In the first ship on board which I
made a long cruise, beginning in 1867, of ten in the ward-room, three
only, the surgeon, paymaster, and chief engineer, were over thirty;
and they barely. I myself, next to the captain, was twenty-six; and
there was not a married man among us. The seamen, though
professionally more liable to dispersion than the land forces, were
not yet scattered. Thus provided against immediate alarms, and with
the laurels of the War of Secession still fresh, the country in
military matters lay down and went to sleep, like the hare in the
fable, regardless of the incessant progress on every side, which,
indeed, was scarcely that of the tortoise. Our ships underwent no
change in character or armament.

Twenty years later, in the Pacific, I commanded one of these old
war-horses, not yet turned out to grass or slaughter, ship-rigged to
royals, and slow-steamed. One day the French admiral came on board to
return my official visit. As he left, he paused for a moment abreast
one of our big, and very old, pivot guns. "Capitaine," he said, "les
vieux canons!" Two or three days later came his chief of staff on some
errand or other. That discharged, when I was accompanying him to his
boat at the gangway, he stopped in the same spot as the admiral. His
gaze was meditative, reminiscent, perhaps even sentimental. "Ou
sont les neiges d'antan?" Whatever their present merits as
fighting-machines, he saw before him an historical memento, sweeping
gently, doubtless, the chords of youthful memories. "Oui, oui!" he
said at last; "l'ancien systeme. Nous l'avons eu." It was a summary of
American naval policy during the twenty years following 1865; we
"hail" things which other nati