BOGITS PllOMOTIONS AND BOGUS PAY. 
505 
say all of this was great news; but then it was all dark- 
ened by some unpleasant drawback. Our friends were 
mostly well, but many had been confined to the bed of 
sickness. We had all been promoted, but it was to bogus 
elevations and to bogus pay. Our professional prospects, 
as far as pay and subsistence were concerned, had actu- 
ally been changed for the worse. And this assertion I 
am prepared to prove in the cases of at least two bogus 
promotions out of three, though it is the prevailing 
opinion that the entire “active list” of the navy has been 
immeasurably benefited. And, lastly, the pleasure of our 
cruise, being at an end, was chilled (to one at least) by 
the very unpleasant reflection that he had to pay his own 
expenses home. 
A few days after our arrival, we all went up to the 
navy-yard at Mare Island, when our crew were dis- 
charged or transferred to the Vincennes and Cooper, 
the captain and first lieutenant ordered to the Vin- 
cennes, the rest of us ordered home, and the old tub 
hei'self turned over to the yard, with the charitable 
warning that “she would be more likely to sink than 
swim if she ever went to sea again.” Two of us came 
home by waj' of Nicaragua, the others vid Panama, and 
both parties arrived at New York within a few days of 
each other. AVe now scattered to our widely-spread 
homes, — north, south, east, and west, — and after the first 
few days began to look in the papers for any stray notices 
in regard to the movements of the Vincennes and Cooper. 
One day I picked up a paper tliat was both amusing and 
informing: — the Cooper had also been turned over to the 
yard, the Vincennes was ordered to New York vid Cape 
