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with which he considered that he had been treated. He 
urged that a man of trained mind could no more forget 
the profession acquired in the vigor of his youth, than he 
could forget the art of swimming, mastered at the same 
period of life, and that the only ground on which his “ retire- 
ment” could be advocated or defended, namely, a presumed 
inability by reason of disuse to perform the duties of an of- 
ficer at sea, was utterly fallacious. Yet, waiving that point, 
how could an officer be justly set aside for alleged incompe- 
tency in his profession, when his life had been spent in 
active, energetic fulfilment of orders of his superiors, over 
which he had no control,— even had these orders not been 
given without solicitation on his own part. 
I pass this subject by, for it can do no good to dwell upon 
it. It is not for me, nor indeed for any of us, to pass judg- 
ment upon acts purely professional and technical ; and there 
can be no one more painfully aware how frequently great, 
individual injustice seems inseparable from the execution of 
plans judicious in themselves, and conducive to the public 
_ welfare. It is not an infrequent observation that wise laws 
do not always seem, to go hand in hand with equity. 
It may be well to state here that when, after the flight of 
Maury, in 1861, Gilliss had been assigned to the post which 
the scientific world had expected for him sixteen years be- 
re, he soon received a commission as Commander, and a 
little more than a year later he received his commission as 
Captain, in the regular order of his seniority. 
Early in the summer of 1858, while he was still engaged 
in the reduction of his observations, Gilliss, seeing the an- 
nouncement that European observers were preparing to visit 
Brazil for the purpose of observing the total eclipse of the 
sun in September following, and perceiving that no arrange- 
-Mhents were in progress for sending observers to the rainless 
