HONORS TO THE AMERICAN NAVY 



87 



wars the graduates of the Naval Acad- 

 emy have been equal to every duty which 

 has been imposed upon them. They have 

 made a record of which every American 

 citizen should be proud. 



The American sailorman has always 

 been efficient. They were good men in 

 the time of the Revolution; competent 

 men in the time of the War of 1812. They 

 are better men today than they were in 

 those days, because today ninety-five per 

 cent of them are American citizens, and 

 not a man is shipped in the American 

 Navy who has not declared his intention 

 to become a citizen. Twenty-five years 

 ago not more than thirty per cent of our 

 men-of-war's men were American citi- 

 zens. 



I like to think of John Downes, the 

 first man in the service, having a name 

 that has been borne on the naval register 

 from the Revolutionary War to the pres- 

 ent time. He was a boy, fifteen years 

 old, when he went to sea with Paul Jones. 

 When the Ranger, on which he served, 

 returned to the coast of France after her 

 encounter with the Drake, a lady asked 

 him why his mother let him go to sea. 

 He answered, "She did not let me go ; 

 she sent me." That was the spirit of the 

 boys at that time. 



I like to think of old Jack Robinson, 

 Paul Jones' boatswain. When Paul 

 Jones had made his memorable reply that 

 he had just commenced to fight, he turned 

 and said, "Jack, had we better surren- 

 der?" Jack replied, "No, sir; not while 

 we have got a single shot left in the 

 locker." That is the stuff that men be- 

 hind the guns were made of in the old 

 days. 



I like to think of the spirit displayed 

 by that old American admiral, Melancton 

 Smith, who was a bureau chief during 

 the Civil War. His son, Joseph Smith, 

 was in command of the Congress in 

 Hampton Roads when the Merrimack 

 attacked the fleet. Word was brought 

 to the Admiral that the ship his son com- 

 manded had surrendered. The only com- 

 ment that the old man made was, "Then 

 Joe is dead." 



The American Navy has been success- 

 ful because our ships have always been 

 as good ships as any that were built 

 in the world. Our merchantmen, in the 

 Revolutionary times, and down to the 

 Civil War, were the best merchant ships 

 sailing the seas. They were, no doubt, 

 as I said before, the best manned, and 

 they made the fastest time. During the 

 period of wooden ships, when we built 

 men-of-war they were of the same gen- 

 eral character. Our men-of-war, gun for 

 gun, were equal to, and probably supe- 

 rior, those of any other nation. We 

 had a period after the Civil War when 

 we fell behind, but, notwithstanding all 

 of the agitation today about armor belts 

 and other criticisms, I am optimistic 

 enough to believe that our battleships, 

 ship for ship, gun for gun, are just as 

 good as, if not better than, any similar 

 ships in the world. 



We have always been able to shoot 

 better than most people. Go back to the 

 early times, to the Revolutionary War. 

 We lost twenty-four men-of-war, carry- 

 ing less than five hundred guns, in the 

 Revolutionary War, while the British lost 

 one hundred and two men-of-war, carry- 

 ing more than twenty-five hundred guns. 

 We captured eight hundred of their mer- 

 chant ships, and it is not too much to say 

 that if it had not been for the damage- 

 caused by the American Navy we would 

 not have won the Revolutionary War at 

 all ; that is, it might have been necessary 

 later to have fought that war over again. 



The same relative skill prevailed in the 

 War of 1812. Our ships of the same 

 class were superior to the ships of our 

 opponents. This statement is confirmed 

 when we study the exact figures. For 

 instance, in the Hornet-Peacock contest, 

 the British ship lost five men killed and 

 thirty-seven wounded, out of a crew of 

 one hundred and thirty, while the Ameri- 

 can ship had but three men wounded — 

 this in eleven minutes. In the Wasp- 

 Frolic fight the British ship lost fifteen 

 men killed and forty-seven wounded, out 

 of a crew of one hundred and ten, while 

 the American ship lost but five killed and: 



