Chapter VIII: Part 8

Well, then, the Sirdar has another great quality: he is a splendid diplomatist. It would require talents of no small acuteness and development to enable him to carry to so successful a result as he did that exceedingly delicate mission up the Nile which conducted him into the presence of Major Marchand. The intercourse of that time has ended apparently in the deepest affection on both sides [laughter]--certainly in the most unrestricted and unstinted compliments and expressions of admiration and approval. I think these things show very much for the diplomatic talents of the Sirdar. He recently expressed his hope that the differences which might have arisen from the presence of Major Marchand would not transcend the powers of diplomacy to adjust. I am glad to say that up to a certain point he has proved a true prophet. [Cheers.] I received from the French Ambassador this afternoon the information that the French Government had come to the conclusion that the occupation of Fashoda was of no sort of value to the French Republic. [Loud cheers and some laughter.] And they thought that in the circumstances to persist in an occupation which only cost them money and did them harm merely because some bad advisers thought it might be disagreeable to an unwelcome neighbor, would not show the wisdom by which I think the French Republic has been uniformly guided, and they have done what I believe the government of any other country would have done, in the same position--they have resolved that that occupation must cease. [Cheers.] A formal intimation of that fact was made to me this afternoon and it has been conveyed to the French authorities at Cairo. I believe that the fact of that extremely difficult juxtaposition between the Sirdar and Major Marchand has led to a result which is certainly gratifying and, to some extent, unexpected; and that it is largely due to the chivalrous character and diplomatic talents which the Sirdar displayed on that occasion. [Cheers.] I do not wish to be understood as saying that all causes of controversy are removed by this between the French Government and ourselves. It is probably not so, and I daresay we shall have many discussions in the future; but a cause of controversy of a somewhat acute and dangerous character has been removed and we cannot but congratulate ourselves upon that. [Cheers.]

I will only say that alike in his patient and quiet forethought, lasting over three years, in his brilliant strategy on the field of battle, in his fearless undertaking of responsibility and his contempt of danger, and last but not least in the kindness and consideration which he displayed for men who were for a moment in a position of antagonism to himself--in these things he has shown a combination of the noblest qualities which distinguish the race to which he belongs and by the exercise of which the high position of England in this generation in the world and in her great Empire has been won. [Loud cheers.]

WILLIAM THOMAS SAMPSON

VICTORY IN SUPERIOR NUMBERS

[Speech of Rear-Admiral William T. Sampson at a banquet given in
his honor by citizens of Boston, Mass., February 6, 1899. Hon.
Richard Olney presided on the occasion.]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--I rise to thank you for your most generous greeting for myself, for my friends, and for all of the Navy that you have included in the various remarks which have been made. I want you to understand that I do not take it all to myself, but that this is divided with all the men; and while with great hesitation I attempt to make a speech at all, I feel that this is an opportunity which should not be thrown away. I do not propose to say anything, as you might expect, about the battle of Santiago, but I would like to say a few words about the lessons which we have learned, or should learn, from that battle.

First, I would say that neither that battle nor any other that I know of, was won by chance. It requires an adequate means to accomplish such a result. That battles are not won by chance, you have only to consider for a moment a few--one or two--of the principal battles of the world. Not that I mean to class the battle of Santiago as one of the great battles of the world--but just as an illustration. You will see the result of adequate means in the case of the battle of Waterloo, for instance. When we remember that Wellington fought that battle with 130,000 men opposed to Napoleon's 80,000, we are not surprised that it was Wellington's battle. Take another decisive battle--Sedan. When the Germans had 125,000 men opposed to 84,000, it does not seem possible that the result could have been anything else.

So we might go over a long list. The sea fights furnish many instances where it was found that the most powerful fleet was the one that was successful. Nelson was always in favor of overwhelming fleets, though he did not have them always at his command. Our own war of 1812 furnishes numerous instances where our victories depended upon the superior force. It seems unnecessary that such self-evident truths should be stated before this assemblage of intelligent gentlemen, but we are apt to forget that a superior force is necessary to win a victory. As I said before, victory is not due to chance. Had superior force not been our own case at the battle of Santiago, had it been the reverse, or had it been materially modified, what turned out to be a victory might have been a disaster; and that we must not forget.

The second lesson, if we may call it so, is closely allied, perhaps, to the first. Shall we learn the lesson which is taught us in this recent war? Shall we rest on the laurels which we may have won, or shall we prepare for the future? Shall we not imagine our foe in the future, as might well be the case, to be superior to the one over which we have been victorious? It is a question that comes home to us directly. On July 3d, when Cervera was returned, on board the "Iowa," to the mouth of the harbor at Santiago, he requested permission to send a telegram reporting the state of the case to Captain-General Blanco. Of course, no objection was raised to this, and Cervera wrote out a telegram and sent it on board the flagship to be scrutinized and forwarded to Blanco. He stated in this telegram that he obeyed his (General Blanco's) orders and left the harbor of Santiago at 9.30 Sunday morning, and "now," he said, "it is with the most profound regret that I have to report that my fleet has been completely destroyed. We went out to meet the forces of the enemy, which outnumbered us three to one."

I had so much sympathy with old Admiral Cervera that I did not have it in my heart to modify or change in any respect the report which he proposed to make to Captain-General Blanco. I felt that the truth would be understood in the course of time, and that while I would not now, or then, under any circumstances, admit that he was outnumbered in the proportion of three to one, I still felt that he should be at liberty to defend himself in that manner.

The fleets that were opposed to each other on that Sunday morning were, as regards the number of the ships, about six to seven. Leaving out the torpedo-destroyers and the "Gloucester," which may be said not to have been fighting ships, the proportion was six to four. The fleet of the Spaniards consisted of four beautiful ships. I think I am stating the case within bounds when I say that they were--barring their condition at that time, which, of course, we did not all know, in many respects--that they were all our imaginations had led us to suppose. We outnumbered them, but this is only another illustration of the fact which I wish to bring before you, that it is necessary to have a superior force to make sure of victory in any case.

It seems to me that you, gentlemen, who are so influential in determining and deciding what the Navy of the United States should be, should bear this emphatically in mind--that we must have more ships, more guns, and all that goes to constitute an efficient navy. I am not advocating a large navy. I do not believe that we should support a large navy, but that it should be much larger than it is at present I think you will all concede. The increased territory which we have added to our country will probably produce an increase in our chances for war by at least one hundred per cent.--not that we need increase the Navy to that extent--but probably will.

NOAH HUNT SCHENCK

TRUTH AND TRADE

[Speech of Rev. Dr. Noah Hunt Schenck at the 110th annual banquet
of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, New York City,
May 14, 1878. In introducing Dr. Schenck, the President, Samuel D.
Babcock, said: "The loose manner in which the Dinner Committee have
conducted their business is now becoming evident. The chairman has
got considerably mixed on the toasts. You may recollect that the
toast to which Dr. Chapin responded referred to twins [Rev. Dr.
Edwin H. Chapin had spoken to the toast 'Commerce and Capital, twin
forerunners of civilization and philanthropy'], and here is one
that refers to matrimony, and it is very evident that this one
ought to have preceded the other. [Laughter and applause.] Eighth
regular toast, 'Truth and Trade: those whom God hath joined
together, let no man put asunder.'"]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--It were an ambitious effort to hold the attention of this distinguished body directly after its ears had been ravished by the eloquent deliverances of the finished orators who have just preceded me. In fact, I can scarcely imagine why you enlist another voice from Brooklyn, unless it be to show that there is a possibility of exhausting Brooklyn, and you would make it my sad office to afford you the illustration. [Applause.]

The Chairman said at the beginning that the best speeches were to be at the last. You have already discovered that this was designed for irony, for thus far the speeches have been incomparable, but mine is to be the beginning of the end. [Laughter and applause.]

I know that what I say is true when I charge the Chairman with irony, for do not I feel his iron entering my soul? [Laughter and applause.] It is an act of considerable temerity, even though the ground has been so gracefully broken by the Rev. Dr. Chapin, for a clergyman to rise before this common-sense body of three hundred business men (unless we had you in our churches), for you well know that this precious quality of common sense is supposed to have its habitat almost entirely with business men, and rarely with the clergy.

I know full well that the men of the pulpit are held to be wanting in practical knowledge, and that we know but little of the dark and devious ways of this naughty world. So that, rising here, I feel as if I were but a little one among a thousand, and yet I would venture to submit that the clergy are not wholly unpractical. Nay, I sometimes am led to think that the men of my cloth are the most practical, common-sense business men in the world. [Laughter and applause.]

There is certainly no class of men who can make so little go so far, who can live so comfortably on such small incomes, who can fatten on pastures where the members of this Chamber of Commerce would starve. [Applause and laughter.] There is no class of men that go through life in such large proportion without bankruptcy. [Laughter and applause.]

While 25,000 merchants in the United States during the four years from 1871 to 1875 failed in business, with liabilities amounting to $800,000,000 (I quote statistics from accepted authority), I do not believe that one-quarter of that number of clergymen failed [laughter and applause], or that their liabilities amounted to anything like that sum. [Laughter and applause.] I have seen the estimate that eighty-five per cent. of merchants fail within two years after they embark in business, notwithstanding their common sense, and that only three per cent, make more money in the long run than is enough for a comfortable livelihood.

Having thus attempted to fortify my waning "Dutch courage" by an off-hand attack upon my hospitable entertainers, and having in some sense, even though it be Pickwickian, vindicated my cloth, let me go on for a moment and cut my garment according to it. [Laughter and applause.]

I have been asked to say a word upon the wedlock of Truth and Trade, and advocate the idea that what in the nature of things has been joined together of God, should not, should never be sundered by man. We know that Truth is eternal. Trade, thank God, is not. [Laughter and applause.] Still, so far as time and earth are concerned, trade endures from first to last and everywhere. God married it to truth with the fiat that men should eat bread in the sweat of their faces. From that moment men have been wrangling in every court of conscience and society to secure decrees of divorce. How manifold and multitudinous the tricks, dodges, and evasions to which men have resorted to be rid of the work which conditions bread. [Laughter and applause.] The great art of life in the estimate of the general, said a great economist, is to have others do the face-sweating and themselves the bread-eating. [Laughter and applause.]

But all along the line of the centuries the divine utterances have given forth with clarion clearness that God would have men illustrate morals and religion in the routine of business life. And so in all the upper levels of civilization we observe that society points with pride to the integrity that is proof against the temptations of trade. The men who have honored sublime relations of business and religion are they whom the world has delighted to honor. With but rare exceptions trade, wherever it has been prosperous, has had truth for its wedded partner. For the most part, wherever men have achieved high success in traffic, it has been not upon the principle that "Honesty is the best policy," for honesty is never policy, but upon the basis of fidelity to truth and right under every possible condition of things. The man who is honest from motives of policy will be dishonest when policy beckons in that direction. The men who have illumined the annals of trade are those who have bought the truth and sold it not, who held it only to dispense it for the welfare of others.

We cannot too highly honor the temper of that generation of business men who half a century ago sternly refused to compromise with any form of deceit in the details of traffic, visiting with the severest penalties those who at all impinged upon the well-accepted morals of trade. The story is told of a young merchant who, beginning business some fifty years ago, overheard one day a clerk misrepresenting the quality of some merchandise. He was instantly reprimanded and the article was unsold. The clerk resigned his position at once, and told his employer that the man who did business that way could not last long. But the merchant did last, and but lately died the possessor of the largest wealth ever gathered in a single lifetime.

Permit me another incident and this not from New York, but Philadelphia. One of the Copes had but just written his check for $50 for some local charity, when a messenger announced the wreck of an East Indiaman belonging to the firm, and that the ship and cargo were a total loss. Another check for $500 was substituted at once, and given to the agent of the hospital with the remark: "What I have God gave me, and before it all goes, I had better put some of it where it can never be lost." [Applause.]

Such illustrations as these are not infrequent in the biographies of those noble men who in days gone by as well as in our own times, have never divorced truth from trade, but have always reverenced the sacred relations. I dare venture the remark that the prosperity of a nation is more largely dependent upon the probity of its merchants than upon any other one class of men. [Applause.] This because of their numbers, their influence over so many who are subject to them in business, and their close relation to, and important control over, the financial interests of the country.

What a wide area of opportunity is afforded in the counting-room, where so many students of trade are preparing for the uncertain future! Accept, I beseech you, the responsibility of moulding the characters of your young men and so prepare a generation of merchants who shall know of nothing but honesty and honor, and who will cherish nobility of sentiment in all their business transactions. [Applause.]

And can you not help the world abroad as well as at home? I believe that merchants engaged in commerce with foreign nations, have it within the scope and purview of their business relations to do as much for the propagation of Christian truth as the Church itself. If your ventures are intrusted to the direction of men of character; if your agents are men who recognize in practice the morals of the religion they profess, you will not only not negative as now, alas! but too often the efforts of the Church's envoys, by the frequent violations of Christian law, on the part of those who propose to be governed by it; but through the illustrations you can send out of Christian consistency--by the living representatives of our higher civilization, which you can furnish to remote nations, to say nothing of the voluntary agency in scattering the printed powers of our faith in all quarters of the globe, how much may not be accomplished in this and in other ways by your men and your ships--Trade thus travelling round the world with Truth by her side, helping each other and healing the nations. [Applause.]

WINFIELD SCOTT SCHLEY

THE NAVY IN PEACE AND IN WAR

[Speech of Winfield S. Schley at the eighteenth annual dinner of
the New England Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, December 22,
1898. The President, Stephen W. Dana, presented Admiral Schley in
these words: "Admiral Schley needs no introduction from me--he
speaks for himself."]

MR. PRESIDENT, GENTLEMEN OF THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:--I am very much in the condition of the gentleman who, being about to be married and having had his wedding suit brought home a day before the event, returned it to the tailor with instructions to increase the girth just two inches. His explanation was that not enough room had been left to accommodate the wedding breakfast he had to eat or for the emotion that was to follow the event.

I am always glad to meet my countrymen anywhere and everywhere. They stand for all that is representative; they stand for all that is progressive; they stand for all that represents humanity, and they stand for all that is fair-minded, high-minded, and honorable. As to those of us who by the circumstances of our service are obliged to pass the greater part of our lives away from home, away from kindred, and away from the flag, it may be difficult to understand how to keep the altar of one's patriotism burning when we are separated from the sweetest and kindest influences of life and performing a service and a duty that are outside of the public observation. But there is a large-heartedness at home that never forgets us. We are bound to our country by ties that are not only sweet in their nature, but the circumstances of service generate a love of home and a patriotism that are the surest guarantees of the welfare and the safety of our people.

The Navy is that arm of the public defence the nature of whose duties is dual in that they relate to both peace and war. In times of peace the Navy blazes the way across the trackless deep, maps out and marks the dangers which lie in the routes of commerce, in order that the peaceful argosies of trade may pursue safe routes to the distant markets of the world, there to exchange the varied commodities of commerce. It penetrates the jungle and the tangle of the inter-tropical regions. It stands ready to starve to death or to die from exposure. It pushes its way into the icy fastnesses of the North or of the South, in order that it may discover new channels of trade. It carries the influence of your power and the beneficent advantages of your civilization to the secluded and hermit empires of the Eastern world, and brings them into touch with our Western civilization and its love of law for the sake of the law rather than for fear of the law's punishments. It stands guard upon the outer frontiers of civilization, in pestilential climates, often exposed to noisome disease, performing duties that are beyond the public observation but yet which have their happy influence in maintaining the reputation and character of our country and extending the civilizing agency of its commerce.

The bones of the officers and men of the Navy lie in every country in the world, or along the highways of commerce; they mark the resting-places of martyrs to a sense of duty that is stronger than any fear of death. The Navy works and strives and serves, without any misgivings and without any complaints, only that it may be considered the chief and best guardian of the interests of this people, of the prestige of this nation, and of the glory and renown of its flag.

These are some of the duties of peace, which has its triumphs "no less renowned than war." But it is the martial side of the Navy that is the more attractive one to us. It is that side of its duty which presents to us its characters who have written their names and their fames in fire. No matter what may be our ideas of civilization or how high our notions of peace, there is no one of us who has not felt his heart beat a little bit faster and his blood course a little bit more rapidly when reading of the daring and thrilling deeds of such men as John Paul Jones or of Decatur or of Stewart or of Hull or of Perry or of MacDonald or of Tatnall or of Ingram or of Cushing or of Porter or of Farragut.

The war so happily ended has added new names to the galaxy of naval worthies. New stars are in the firmament. The records indicate that your naval representatives have been faithful to the lesson of their traditions, that they have been true to their history, whilst the men of our Navy have shown that they have lost none of the skill and none of the tact that they have inherited. But they have proven again that a generation of men who are able to defend their title to the spurs they inherited are proper successors to their progenitors. [Applause.]

HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN

THE BEGINNINGS OF ART

[Speech of Heinrich Schliemann at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy, London, May 5, 1877. Sir Gilbert Scott, the eminent
architect, took the chair in the absence of Sir Frederick Grant,
the President of the Academy. In introducing Dr. Schliemann, Sir
Gilbert Scott spoke as follows: "There is one gentleman present
among us this evening who has special claims upon an expression of
our thanks. Antiquarian investigation is emphatically a subject of
our own day. More has been discovered of the substantial vestiges
of history in our own than probably in any previous age; and it
only needs the mention of the names of Champollion, Layard,
Rawlinson, and Lipsius to prove that we have in this age obtained a
genuine knowledge of the history of art as practised in all
previous ages. Not only have we obtained a correct understanding of
the arts of our own race as exemplified in our own mediæval
antiquities, but lost buildings of antiquity such as the Egyptian
labyrinth, the palace of Nineveh, the mausoleum of Halicarnassus,
the temple and statues of Olympia, and the temple of Diana at
Ephesus have been re-discovered and disinterred. ["Hear! Hear!"]
There remained, however, one great hiatus. We knew something of the
more archaic periods of Greek art, and we knew that on the gate of
Mycenæ there were evidences of an art far more archaic and
apparently not allied with true Hellenic art, but we knew no more
nor had an idea how the great gulf in art history was to be bridged
over. It still remains a great gulf, but Dr. Schliemann by his
excavations, first on the site of Troy and then of Mycenæ, has
brought to open daylight what, without prejudging questions as yet
_sub judice_, seem to be the veritable works of the heroes of the
Iliad; and if he has not yet actually solved the mysteries which
shroud that age, he has brought before us a perfect wealth of fact
at the least calculated to sharpen our antiquarian appetite for
more certain knowledge. Knowing that Dr. Schliemann is like one in
old times, who, while longing to tell of the Atrides and of Cadmus,
yet allowed the chords of his heart to vibrate to softer
influences, I will, while proposing his health, conjoin with his
name that of his energetic fellow-explorer, Madame Schliemann."]

MR. PRESIDENT, MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN:--You have been pleased to confer upon me two of the greatest honors which this country can possibly bestow upon a foreigner--first, by your kind invitation to this hospitable banquet to meet the most illustrious statesmen, the most eminent scholars, and the most distinguished artists; and secondly, by your toast to my health. In warmly thanking you, I feel the greatest satisfaction to think that for these signal honors, I am solely indebted to my labors in Troy and Mycenæ. ["Hear! Hear!"]

In Troy art was only in its first dawn; color was still completely unknown, and instead of painting, the vases were decorated with incised patterns filled with white clay. The productions of sculpture were limited to carving of small flat idols of Minerva [Greek: glaukôpis][6] of marble, almost in the forms of two discs, which adhered to each other, and upon which the owl's face is rudely scratched. The Trojan treasure certainly shows more art, but it is characterized by an absence of ornamentation. In Mycenæ, on the contrary, the monuments which I have brought to light show a high state of civilization, and the skill with which the gold ornaments are made leads us to pre-suppose a school of domestic artists which had flourished for ages before it reached such perfection.

The very great symmetry we see also in the vase-paintings and in the carvings of spirals and rosettes on stone, whereas representations of men or animals are exceedingly rude and appear to be the primitive Mycenean sculptor's first essay. But rude as they are, and childish as they look, these primitive productions of Greek art are of paramount interest to science, because we see in them the great-grandfathers of the masterpieces of Phidias and Praxiteles; they prove to us in the most certain manner that the artistic genius of the epoch of Pericles did not come suddenly down from heaven like Minerva from the head of Jove, but that it was the result of a school of artists, which had gradually developed in the course of ages.

Once more, I tender my thanks for the patience with which you have listened to a stranger. ["Hear! Hear!"]

CARL SCHURZ

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW

[Speech of Carl Schurz at a banquet given by the Chamber of
Commerce of the State of New York, New York City, November 5, 1881,
in honor of the guests of the Nation, the French diplomatic
representatives in America, and members of the families descended
from our foreign sympathizers and helpers, General Lafayette, Count
de Rochambeau, Count de Grasse, Baron von Steuben, and others, who
were present at the centennial celebration of the victory at
Yorktown. The chairman, James M. Brown, Vice-President of the
Chamber of Commerce, proposed the toast, "The Old World and the
New," to which Carl Schurz was called upon for a response.]

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:--If you had been called upon to respond to the toast: "The Old World and the New" as frequently as I have, you would certainly find as much difficulty as I find in saying anything of the Old World that is new or of the New World that is not old. [Applause.]

And the embarrassment grows upon me as I grow older, as it would upon all of you, except perhaps my good friend, Mr. Evarts, who has determined never to grow old, and whose witty sayings are always as good as new. [Laughter.] Still, gentlemen, the scenes which we have been beholding during the last few weeks have had something of a fresh inspiration in them. We have been celebrating a great warlike event--not great in the number of men that were killed in it, but very great in the number of people it has made happy. It has made happy not only the people of this country who now count over fifty millions, but it has made happier than they were before the nations of the Old World, too; who, combined, count a great many more. [Applause.]

American Independence was declared at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, by those who were born upon this soil, but American Independence was virtually accomplished by that very warlike event I speak of, on the field of Yorktown, where the Old World lent a helping hand to the New. [Applause.] To be sure, there was a part of the Old World consisting of the British, and I am sorry to say, some German soldiers, who strove to keep down the aspirations of the New, but they were there in obedience to the command of a power which they were not able to resist, while that part of the Old World which fought upon the American side was here of its own free will as volunteers. [Cheers.]

It might be said that most of the regular soldiers of France were here also by the command of power, but it will not be forgotten that there was not only Lafayette, led here by his youthful enthusiasm for the American cause, but there was France herself, the great power of the Old World appearing as a volunteer on a great scale. [Cheers.] So were there as volunteers those who brought their individual swords to the service of the New World. There was the gallant Steuben, the great organizer who trained the American army to victory, a representative of that great nation whose monuments stand not only upon hundreds of battle-fields of arms, but whose prouder monuments stand upon many more battle-fields of thought. [Cheers.] There was Pulaski, the Pole, and DeKalb who died for American Independence before it was achieved. And there were many more Frenchmen, Germans, Swedes, Hollanders, Englishmen even, who did not obey the behests of power. [Cheers.] And so it may be said that the cause of the New World was the cause of the volunteers of the Old. And it has remained the cause of volunteers in peace as well as in war, for since then we have received millions of them, and they are arriving now in a steady stream, thousands of them every week; I have the honor to say, gentlemen, that I am one of them. [Cheers.]

Nor is it probable that this volunteering in mass will ever stop, for it is in fact drawn over here by the excitement of war as much as by the victories of peace. It was, therefore, natural that the great celebration of that warlike event should have been turned or rather that it should have turned itself into a festival of peace on the old field of Yorktown--peace illustrated by the happy faces of a vast multitude, and by all the evidence of thrift and prosperity and well-being; peace illustrated by the very citizen-soldiery who appeared there to ornament as a pageant, with their brilliant bayonets that peaceful festival; peace illustrated by the warmth of a grand popular welcome offered to the honored representatives of the Old World; peace illustrated, still more, by their friendly meeting upon American soil whatever their contentions at home may have been; peace glorified by what has already been so eloquently referred to by Dr. Storrs and Mr. Evarts; that solemn salute offered to the British flag, to the very emblem of the old antagonism of a hundred years ago; and that salute, echoing in every patriotic American heart, to be followed as the telegraph tells us now, by the carrying of the American flag in honor in the Lord Mayor's procession in London--all this a cosmopolitan peace festival, in which the Old World sent its representatives to join in rejoicing over the prosperity and progress of the New. [Cheers.]

There could hardly have been a happier expression of this spirit of harmony than was presented in the serenade offered to these gentlemen--representatives of the honored name of Steuben on the evening of their arrival in New York, the band playing first "The Watch on the Rhine," followed by the "Marseillaise" and "God Save the Queen," and then the martial airs of the Old World resolving themselves into the peaceful strains of the crowning glory of "Hail, Columbia!" and "Yankee Doodle." [Cheers.]

The cordiality of feeling which binds the Old and the New World together, and which found so touching, so tender, so wonderful an expression in the universal heartfelt sorrow of all civilized mankind at the great national bereavement, which recently has befallen us [the assassination of President Garfield], can hardly fail to be strengthened by this visit of the Old World guests whom we delight to honor. [Cheers.]

They have seen now something of our country, and our people; most of them, probably, for the first time, and I have no doubt they have arrived at the conclusion that the country for which Lafayette and Steuben and Rochambeau fought is a good country, inhabited by a good people [cheers]; a good country and a good people, worthy of being fought for by the noblest men of the earth; and I trust also when these gentlemen return to their own homes they will go back with the assurance that the names of their ancestors who drew their swords for American liberty stand in the heart of every true American side by side with the greatest American names, and that, although a century has elapsed since the surrender of Yorktown, still the gratitude of American hearts is as young and fresh and warm to-day as it was at the moment when Cornwallis hauled down his flag. [Applause.]

It seems to me also, gentlemen, that we have already given some practical evidence of that gratitude. The independence they helped to achieve has made the American nation so strong and active and prosperous that when the Old World runs short of provisions, the New stands always ready and eager even, to fill the gap, and by and by we may even send over some products of other industries for their accommodation. [Applause.]

In fact, we have been so very liberal and generous in that respect, that some of our friends on the other side of the sea are beginning to think that there may be a little too much of a good thing, and are talking of shutting it off by tricks of taxation. [Laughter.] However, we are not easily baffled. Not content with the contribution of our material products, we even send them from time to time, some of our wisdom, as, for instance, a few months ago, our friend, Mr. Evarts, went over there to tell them about the double standard--all that we knew and a good deal more. [Laughter.] We might even be willing to send them all the accumulated stock of our silver, if they will give us their gold for it. [Cheers.] It is to be apprehended that this kind of generosity will not be fittingly appreciated and in that respect they may prefer the wisdom of the Old World to that of the New. [Laughter.]

However, we shall not quarrel about that, for seriously speaking, the New and the Old World must and will, in the commercial point of view, be of infinite use one to another as mutual customers, and our commercial relations will grow more fruitful to both sides from year to year, and from day to day, as we remain true to the good old maxim: "Live and let live." [Cheers.] Nor is there the least speck of danger in the horizon threatening to disturb the friendliness of an international understanding between the Old World and the New. That cordial international understanding rests upon a very simple, natural, and solid basis. We rejoice with the nations of the Old World in all their successes, all their prosperity, and all their happiness, and we profoundly and earnestly sympathize with them whenever a misfortune overtakes them. But one thing we shall never think of doing, and that is, interfering in their affairs. [Cheers.]

On the other hand they will give us always their sympathy in good and evil as they have done heretofore, and we expect that they will never think of interfering with our affairs on this side of the ocean. [Loud cheers.] Our limits are very distinctly drawn, and certainly no just or prudent power will ever think of upsetting them. The Old World and the New will ever live in harmonious accord as long as we do not try to jump over their fences and they do not try to jump over ours. [Cheers.]

This being our understanding, nothing will be more natural than friendship and good-will between the nations of the two sides of the Atlantic. The only danger ahead of us might be that arising from altogether too sentimental a fondness for one another which may lead us into lovers' jealousies and quarrels. Already some of our honored guests may feel like complaining that we have come very near to killing them with kindness; at any rate, we are permitted to hope that a hundred years hence our descendants may assemble again to celebrate the memory of the feast of cordial friendship which we now enjoy, and when they do so, they will come to an American Republic of three hundred millions of people, a city of New York of ten million inhabitants, and to a Delmonico's ten stories high with a station for airships running between Europe and America on the top of it [cheers], and then our guests may even expect to find comfortable hotels and decent accommodations at the deserted village of Yorktown. [Laughter and cheers.]

But, in the meantime, I am sure our Old World guests who to-night delight us with their presence, will never cease to be proud of it that the great names of which they are the honored representatives are inscribed upon some of the most splendid pages of the New World's history, and will live forever in the grateful affection of the New World's heart. [Loud applause.]

WILLIAM H. SEWARD

A PIOUS PILGRIMAGE

[Speech of William H. Seward at a banquet held at Plymouth, Mass.,
December 21, 1855. Preceding this banquet Mr. Seward delivered an
oration on "The Pilgrims and Liberty." The speech here given is his
response to the toast proposed at the banquet, "The Orator of the
Day, eloquent in his tribute to the virtues of the Pilgrims;
faithful, in his life, to the lessons they taught."]

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--The Puritans were Protestants, but they were not protestants against everybody and everything, right or wrong. They did not protest indiscriminately against everything they found in England. On the other hand, we have abundant indications in the works of genius and art which they left behind them that they had a reverence for all that is good and true; while they protested against everything that was false and vicious. They had a reverence for the good taste and the literature, science, eloquence, and poetry of England, and so I trust it is with their successors in this once bleak and inhospitable, but now rich and prosperous land. They could appreciate poetry, as well as good sense and good taste, and so I call to your recollection the language of a poet who had not loomed up at the time of the Puritans as he has since. It was addressed to his steed, after an ill-starred journey to Islingtontown. The poet said:--

"'Twas for your pleasure you came here,
You shall go back for mine."

Being a candid and frank man, as one ought to be who addresses the descendants of the Puritans, I may say that it was not at all for your pleasure that I came here. Though I may go back to gratify you, yet I came here for my own purposes. The time has passed away when I could make a distant journey from a mild climate to a cold though fair region, without inconvenience; but there was one wish, I might almost say there was only one wish of my heart that I was anxious should be gratified. I had been favored with many occasions to see the seats of empire in this western world, and had never omitted occasions to see where the seats of empire were planted, and how they prospered. I had visited the capital of my own and of many other American States. I had regarded with admiration the capital of this great Republic, in whose destinies, in common with you all, I feel an interest which can never die. I had seen the capitals of the British Empire, and of many foreign empires, and had endeavored to study for myself the principles which have prevailed in the foundation of states and empires. With that view I had beheld a city standing where a migration from the Netherlands planted an empire on the bay of New York, at Manhattan, or perhaps more properly at Fort Orange. They sought to plant a commercial empire, and they did not fail; but in New York now, although they celebrate the memories and virtues of fatherland, there is no day dedicated to the colonization of New York by the original settlers, the immigrants from Holland. I have visited Wilmington, on Christina Creek, in Delaware, where a colony was planted by the Swedes, about the time of the settlement of Plymouth, and though the old church built by the colonists still stands there, I learned that there did not remain in the whole State a family capable of speaking the language, or conscious of bearing the name of one of the thirty-one original colonists.

I have stood on the spot where a treaty was made by William Penn with the aborigines of Pennsylvania, where a seat of empire was established by him, and, although the statue of the good man stands in public places, and his memory remains in the minds of men, yet there is no day set apart for the recollection of the time and occasion when civil and religious liberty were planted in that State. I went still farther south, and descending the James River, sought the first colony of Virginia at Jamestown. There remains nothing but the broken, ruined tower of a poor church built of brick, in which Pocahontas was married, and over the ruins of which the ivy now creeps. Not a human being, bond or free, is to be seen within a mile from the spot, nor a town or city as numerously populated as Plymouth, on the whole shores of the broad, beautiful, majestic river, between Richmond at the head, and Norfolk, where arms and the government have established fortifications. Nowhere else in America, then, was there left a remembrance by the descendants of the founders of colonies, of the virtues, the sufferings, the bravery, the fidelity to truth and freedom of their ancestors; and more painful still, nowhere in Europe can be found an acknowledgment or even a memory of these colonists. In Holland, in Spain, in Great Britain, in France, nowhere is there to be found any remembrance of the men they sent out to plant liberty on this continent. So on the way to the Mississippi, I saw where De Soto planted the standard of Spain, and, in imagination at least, I followed the march of Cortez in Mexico, and Pizarro in Peru; but their memory has gone out. Civil liberty perishes, and religious liberty was never known in South America; nor does Spain, any more than other lands, retain the memory of the apostles she sent out to convert the new world to a purer faith, and raise the hopes of mankind for the well-being of the future.

There was one only place, where a company of outcasts, men despised, contemned, reproached as malcontents and fanatics, had planted a colony, and that colony had grown and flourished; and there had never been a day since it was planted that the very town, and shore, and coast, where it was planted had not grown and spread in population, wealth, prosperity, and happiness, richer and stronger continually. It had not only grown and flourished like a vigorous tree, rejoicing in its own strength, but had sent out offshoots in all directions. Everywhere the descendants of these colonists were found engaged in the struggles for civil and religious liberty, and the rights of man. I had found them by my side, the champions of humanity, upon whose stalwart arms I might safely rely.

I came here, then, because the occasion offered, and if I pretermitted this, it might be the last, and I was unwilling that any friend or any child, who might lean upon me, who reckoned upon my counsel or advice, should know that I had been such a truant to the cause of religious liberty and humanity, as never to have seen the Rock of Plymouth.

My mission being now accomplished, having shed tears in the first church of the Puritans, when the heartfelt benediction was pronounced over my unworthy head by that venerable pastor, I have only to ask that I be dismissed from further service with your kind wishes. I will hold the occasion ever dear to my remembrance, for it is here I have found the solution of the great political problem. Like Archimedes, I have found the fulcrum by whose aid I may move the world--the moral world--and that fulcrum is Plymouth Rock.

WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN

THE ARMY AND NAVY

[Speech of General William T. Sherman at the first annual dinner of
the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1880.
The President, Benjamin D. Silliman, on announcing the toast, "The
Army and Navy--Great and imperishable names and deeds have
illustrated their history," said: "In response to this toast, I
have the privilege of calling on the great Captain who commands the
armies of the Republic; of whom it has been said, that he combines
the skill and valor of the soldier, with the wisdom of the
statesman, and whose name will ever live in the history of the
nation. We shall have the great satisfaction of listening to
General Sherman."]

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--While in Washington I was somewhat embarrassed by receiving invitations from two different New England societies to dine with them on different days in commemoration of the same event. I hoped, under cover of that mistake, to escape one or the other, but I find that each claims its day to be the genuine anniversary of the landing of their Fathers on Plymouth Rock. I must leave some of you to settle this controversy, for I don't know whether it was the 21st or 22d; you here in Brooklyn say the 21st; they in New York say it was the 22d. Laboring under this serious doubt, when I came on the stand and found my name enrolled among the orators and statesmen present, and saw that I was booked to make a speech, I appealed to a learned and most eloquent attorney to represent me on this occasion. I even tried to bribe him with an office which I could not give; but he said that he belonged to that army sometimes described as "invincible in peace, invisible in war." [Laughter.] He would not respond for me. Therefore I find myself upon the stand at this moment compelled to respond, after wars have been abolished by the Honorable Secretary of State, and men are said to have risen to that level where they are never to do harm to each other again--with the millennium come, in fact, God grant it may be so? [Applause.]

I doubt it. I heard Henry Clay announce the same doctrine long before our Civil War. I heard also assertions of the same kind uttered on the floor of our Senate by learned and good men twenty years ago when we were on the very threshold of one of the most bloody wars which ever devastated this or any other land. Therefore I have some doubt whether mankind has attained that eminence where it can look backward upon wars and rumors of war, and forward to a state of perpetual peace.

No, my friends, I think man remains the same to-day, as he was in the beginning. He is not alone a being of reason; he has passions and feelings which require sometimes to be curbed by force; and all prudent people ought to be ready and willing to meet strife when it comes. To be prepared is the best answer to that question. [Applause.]

Now my friends, the toast you have given me to-night to respond to is somewhat obscure to me. We have heard to-night enumerated the principles of your society--which are called "New England ideas." They are as perfect as the catechism. [Applause and laughter.] I have heard them supplemented by a sort of codicil, to the effect that a large part of our country--probably one-half--is still disturbed, and that the Northern man is not welcome there. I know of my own knowledge that two-thirds of the territory of the United States are not yet settled. I believe that when our Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, they began the war of civilization against barbarism, which is not yet ended in America. The Nation then, as Mr. Beecher has well said, in the strife begun by our fathers, aimed to reach a higher manhood--a manhood of virtue, a manhood of courage, a manhood of faith, a manhood that aspires to approach the attributes of God Himself.

Whilst granting to every man the highest liberty known on earth, every Yankee believes that the citizen must be the architect of his own fortune; must carry the same civilization wherever he goes, building school-houses and churches for all alike, and wherever the Yankee has gone thus far he has carried his principles and has enlarged New England so that it now embraces probably a third or a half of the settled part of America. That has been a great achievement, but it is not yet completed. Your work is not all finished.