34 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



sinecurist on shore for the last fifteen years, he was lifted 

 over the heads of many laborious and meritorious officers, 

 and placed by you in the command of the Exploring 

 Expedition in violation of law". 



Maury wrote, in December of the same year, seven 

 more articles for this newspaper, hiding his identity by 

 inscribing them ''From Will Watch to his old messmate 

 Harry Bluff". In these he went further still into details 

 as to the inefficiency of the administration of the navy, 

 dealing especially with the waste connected with the 

 building and repairing of ships, the need for a system of 

 rules and regulations in the navy, and the advisability of 

 establishing a naval school. As to the latter, he wrote, 

 "There is not, in America, a naval school that deserves 

 the name, or that pretends to teach more than the mere 

 rudiments of navigation. . . . Why are not steps 

 taken to have our officers educated and fitted for this 

 high responsibility? The idea of a naval academy has 

 been ridiculed. This may be the fault of Congress; I 

 will not lay the censure at the wrong door — but the De- 

 partment has been equally inattentive to providing the 

 young officers with the proper means of learning even 

 practical seamanship". 



These "Harry Bluff" and "Will Watch" articles, to- 

 gether with one other on "Navy Matters" by "Brandy- 

 wine" which also appeared in the Whig at this time and 

 reveals Maury's authorship through its style, contained 

 the germs of the ideas which he more fully developed in his 

 "Scraps from the Lucky Bag". This series of articles 

 on the need of reform in the conduct of naval affairs 

 appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger during the 

 years 1840 and 1841, under Maury's former pseudonym 

 of "Harry Bluff". The navy was then in a condition of 



