THE DETERMINATION. 451 



snterprise in which I had aspired to win for myself an 

 honorable place among the men who have illustrated 

 their country's history and shed lustre upon their coun- 

 try's flag, were thoughts which first seriously crossed 

 my mind while returning on board, carrying in my 

 hand the bloody record of Ball's Bluff In the face of 

 the startling intelligence which had crowded upon me 

 since reaching Halifax, and which had now culminat- 

 ed ; in the face of the duty which every man owes, in 

 his own person, to his country when his country is in 

 peril, I could not hesitate. Before I had reached my 

 cabin, while our friends were yet in ignorance of our 

 presence in the bay, I had resolved to postpone the 

 execution of the task with which I had charged my- 

 self; and I closed as well the cruise as the project, by 

 writing a letter to the President, asking for immediate 

 employment in the public service, and offering my 

 schooner to the government for a gun-boat. 



Five years have now elapsed since the schooner 

 United States crept to anchorage through the murky 

 vapors of Boston Harbor. The terrible struggle then 

 first realized by me, as at hand, is now over, and has 

 become an event of history. The destinies of individ- 

 uals are ever subordinate to the public weal; and in 

 the presence of great social and political revolutions, 

 when ideas are fringed with bayonets, and great inter- 

 ests are in conflict, men have little leisure for the con- 

 sideration of questions of science, or of remote projects 

 unconnected with the national safety. 



Therefore it is that the further exploration of the 

 Arctic regions was lost sight of by me during the past 



