HE RESORTS TO THE PEN 41 



Badger, suggesting that he was able to perform any of 

 the lighter duties at sea which did not call for much 

 bodily exercise, and requesting that he be appointed 

 flag-lieutenant in the Pacific Squadron under Commo- 

 fore Jones, who had signified a desire to have him in this 

 post. His purpose, however, was thwarted by Judge 

 John T. Lomax, a warm personal friend, who wrote to 

 the Secretary and enclosed a certificate from three of the 

 best physicians of Fredericksburg to the effect that 

 Maury was in no condition for life on board ship ; and as 

 a consequence he was retained on the list of those "wait- 

 ing orders". 



After the completion of his "Scraps from the Lucky 

 Bag", Maury continued to write for the Southern 

 Literary Messenger] he rendered editorial service to Mr. 

 White, the owner of the magazine, during the year 1842, 

 and was virtually the editor during the first eight months 

 of 1843 after White's death. He contributed also to the 

 Army and Navy Chronicle and the Southern Quarterly 

 Review of Charleston. 



His "Letters to Clay" in the Messenger under the 

 pseudonym of "Union Jack" strongly advocated the 

 establishment of a national dockyard at Memphis, 

 government subsidies for the building of steam packets 

 as England and France were doing, a national steamboat 

 canal from the upper Mississippi River to the Lakes for 

 defense against Canada in case of war with Great Britain, 

 a strong naval establishment at some place on the 

 Atlantic seaboard south of Norfolk, and the making of 

 Pensacola a veritable "Toulon on the Mediterranean". 

 The following year, 1842, he took up in the same journal 

 the question of the right of Great Britain to visit and 

 search American ships in the "suspicious" latitudes off 



