54 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



kept her from making port, as had been hoped, on 

 Christmas. Two days later, December 27, 1878, the 

 Jeannette shackled to a buoy at the Mare Island navy 

 yard, in the bay of San Francisco, with just one bucket- 

 ful of coal left on board. 



A month later a bill was introduced into Cong-ress 

 which provided : '' That the Secretary of the Navy be, 

 and he is hereby, authorized to accept and take charge 

 of, for the use of a North Polar Expedition by way of 

 Behring Strait, the ship Jeannette, owned by James 

 Gordon Bennett, and by him devoted to this purpose ; 

 that he may use, in fitting her for her voyage of ex- 

 ploration, any material he may have on hand proper 

 for the purposes of an Arctic voyage ; and that he is 

 further authorized to enlist the necessary crew for the 

 said vessel for ' special service,' their pay to be tempo- 

 rarily met from the pay of the navy, and to be paid or 

 refunded by James Gordon Bennett to the Navy De- 

 partment, under the order of the Secretary of the 

 Navy and as he may require ; the vessel to proceed on 

 her voyage of exploration under the orders and in- 

 structions of the Navy Department ; that the men so 

 ' specially enlisted ' as above shall be subject in all re- 

 spects to the Articles of War and Navy Regulations and 

 Discipline ; and that all parts of the act approved 

 March 18, 1878 [which gave authority to the Secretary 

 to issue an American register and detail officers], in- 

 consistent with the above, be and they are hereby 

 repealed : provided that the Government of the United 

 States is not to be held liable for any expenditure as- 

 sumed, or to be incurred on account of said expedi- 

 tion." The terms of the act gave rise to some in- 

 cidental questions regarding the material which the 

 Secretary might employ, but in the main it was clearly 



