BANQUET. 321 



ADDRESS BY REAR ADMIRAL A. P. NIBLACK. 



Mr. President and gentlemen, this introduction has taken me quite by surprise, because 

 I thought that the president was referring to some really elderly person beloved by every- 

 body. I have been a member of the Society since its foundation, as has Admiral Capps, who 

 served as its first secretary, and I have worked my way up through the hawse pipe to the table 

 where the captains sit, but in the good old days there was an added privilege attached to it — 

 we were given free liquor. (Laughter.) In the good old days the people who were seated 

 on the floor of the banquet hall had speeches handed to them and paid for their own drinks. 

 (Laughter.) I was a little surprised tonight^ when they put on the small bottles, to find 

 that they contained something different from what we had been accustomed to. 



I was reelected one of the vice-presidents of this Society at the meeting of the Council 

 the other day, and when I got a simimons to come on to speak on this particular subject of 

 "The Merchant Fleet in the War," I came with the greatest willingness, as I feel I owe it to 

 this Society to tell it some things in the nature of secrets, which should no longer be secrets, 

 about the merchant marine in the war. You will pardon me if I go into a few general statis- 

 tics, because I feel it is important to tell some things in connection with the work of the mer- 

 chant marine in which this Society is deeply interested, and which no one has yet told. 



I have the honor of representing the Navy at this moment during the visit of the Prince 

 of Wales to this country, and I had the pleasure yesterday of listening to his words, before a 

 group of 2,000 midshipmen at the Naval Academy, of generous praise of the American Navy. 

 I delivered to him an, invitation from the President of the Society to be present here tonight. 

 He regretted he could not come. I told him I was billed to speak, and he asked me the sub- 

 ject on which I was to speak. I told him it was on "The Merchant Fleet in the War," and 

 he said: — "It is a very important subject, and I am glad you are going to speak on it." I 

 saw him last night on his way to get a rest after his busy visit to Washington ; but I want 

 to say that I got the impression that he is really resting up for the strenuous time he is going 

 to have in New York, and not so much because of the one he had in Washington. 



In open,ing my remarks I want to pay my tribute, in response to what His Royal High- 

 ness had to say of the American Navy, to the British merchant marine, and not for the mo- 

 ment of the British Navy, so ably represented here tonight, because no words of mine can 

 paint that picture as it should be and has already been painted. 



The British merchant marine in the four years of the war lost 9,031,886 tons of ship- 

 ping and 14,000 seamen. Of the number that participated in the war, 1,519 of them are on 

 the Honor Roll for bravery in action or in the face of the enemy. (Applause.) The losses 

 of the British merchant marine were terrible. There is a reason why our own merchant ma- 



