AMERICA'S FIRST POLAR EXPEDITION 



It must have hurt the captain sorely, for the barques 

 had been constructed under his own supervision and ac- 

 cording to his own idea, amid impertinent criticisms from 

 the merchant marine. He was not a man tamely to admit 

 that his vessel could be clumsy. He called for Lieutenant 

 Tattnall's official report, which confirmed the rumors; but 

 instead of accepting- it, he grimly hustled his brood of 

 ducklings to sea. He kept them there eight days, during 

 which time the weather was pleasant, and returned with 

 the report that the vessels were good vessels, and that 

 he had never seen a craft better able to claw off a lee 

 shore than the " Pioneer." He caused this report to be 

 published in the papers. Before he went to sea, he had 

 talked over the matter with the Rev. Walter Colton, whom 

 he had recommended for appointment as chaplain of the 

 expedition. The interview occurred in a public place, and 

 Lieutenant Tattnall heard of it. Tattnall was a sensitive 

 man, and, as well as Captain Jones, had noble phrases 

 at his command. He wrote to his commander as follows: 



" I learn now, with astonishment and mortification, that 

 you have openly expressed opinions in regard to the ' Pio- 

 neer ' at direct variance with mine, in respect to facts, so 

 much indeed as to make it hazardous to my reputation 

 to retain the command of a vessel which you deem so 

 highly as to have openly declared that you would sooner 

 be in her in a lee shore than in almost any vessel you 

 know, and of which my opinion is, that she could not in a 

 trifling head sea, claw off a lee shore in a double-reefed 

 topsail breeze. You, and the country, likewise, would of 

 course expect service to be performed by me, which, if 

 my opinion prove correct, I could not perform. 



" That this experimental cruise was made in conse- 

 quence of opinions expressed by me is universally known 

 to the navy, as it is also to every citizen in this borough. 

 Why, sir (I respectfully, but in a mortified spirit, ask you), 

 why, if your judgment had detected and condemned the 

 policy of mine, was it thought necessary to blazon it 

 through the land, so as to make my position, already 

 painful, more so? 



" I am thus rebuked through the public prints, while at 

 the same time I am deprived of the privilege (as this is 



379 



