archæological remains. Three bills touching this subject will receive
attention at the hands of the present Congress. Two of these are bills
for the creation of national parks. One embraces the famous pueblo-like
cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, Colorado; the other includes the great
district of pueblo ruins and excavated cliff dwellings known as Pajarito
Park near Santa Fe, New Mexico. These bills are worthy of the strongest
support, not only from the standpoint of historic and scenic
preservation, but because of the educational value of the opening up of
these interesting districts to the traveling public. Both bills are
thoughtfully prepared, provide for the preservation and care of the
ruins, and that, with the permission of the Secretary of the Interior,
excavations may be conducted by properly qualified persons in the
interests of science. These are districts of magnificent scenery,
embracing less than two townships each, of non-mineral, non-agricultural
lands. No rights whatever will be encroached upon, not a settler
disturbed. I know of no reason whatever for opposition to either of
these bills. They have the support of the people of Colorado and New
Mexico, and their passage is urged by the Department of the Interior,
the General Land Office having officially examined and favorably
recommended both districts for the purposes specified.
The other bill referred to is of much greater importance since it is a
general measure touching not only the preservation of archæological
remains but affecting the whole field of archæological research. Such
bills should receive the most critical scrutiny of those who are engaged
in archæological work and know the field. This bill was introduced at
the last session of Congress as H. R. 13478 by Congressman John F. Lacey
of Iowa. The bill originated in the Department of the Interior. It grows
out of the practical experience of the General Land Office in dealing
with this subject. It is based on a knowledge of the situation and all
the administrative problems involved. It is technically well drawn and
exactly along the broad commendable lines of the policy of the
department as above set forth. It is in fact an outgrowth of the
operation of that policy, the crystalization of which into legislative
enactment is now prayed for. Through repeated official declarations and
acts we know in what manner the powers conferred in the bill will be
administered. The reasons for desiring this enactment are set forth in
the Annual Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office for
1904. Since it is clear that the measure has for its motive the
advancement of archæological science and since it emanates from the
department that has learned the necessities of the case by long
experience and will be charged with its administration, it manifestly
should receive the support of the scientific forces unless on
examination it is found inadequate. It has been widely published and is
the only bill that has been drawn for the purpose that has not met with
pronounced objections. I trust that this Society[47] will give serious
consideration to the measure and, if it meets with your approval, send
at the proper time a strong expression of that approval to the National
Congress.
EDGAR L. HEWETT.
NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASHINGTON.
JOHN PAUL JONES’ FELLOW OFFICERS
So much public interest has been aroused in the United States by the
discovery of the body of John Paul Jones in Paris, and so many
misleading and confusing statements have been published about his career
that it is desirable to understand just what was the part he played in
the naval struggle for independence, and what is the value of his
services as compared with those rendered by his compatriots on the high
seas. Jones, unquestionably, stood head and shoulders over his brother
officers in the service of the Revolution; yet there were some who
pressed him rather closely in the award of honors concerning whose deeds
comparatively little is known.
[It was our hope to have printed an account of the finding of John
Paul Jones’ body, written by General Horace Porter, but the General
wrote us from Paris May 22:
“I knew very well Mrs. Lamb’s Magazine, and would be very happy to
be a contributor to yours, but am so pressed by the winding up of my
duties here, and the finishing of the translations of French experts
and scientists, etc., on the Paul Jones matter, that I really have
not a moment I can call my own. Assuring you of my appreciation of
the interest you have manifested in the subject, and regretting very
much that I cannot answer you more favorably.
Yours very truly,
HORACE PORTER.”
We have, however, much pleasure in quoting from the New York
_Evening Post_ the article by Edgar Stanton Maclay.—ED.]
Captain Jones was a prolific chronicler of his own doings and left
invaluable records of his truly brilliant achievements. This is
mentioned not in the least to detract from the credit so justly due him
(for it is the more to his honor that, in the rough-and-tumble calling
he espoused, he found time to cultivate one of the “polite arts,” then
generally deemed unnecessary in his profession), but to explain why it
is that so little is known of what his brother captains accomplished in
the same period. Our navy officers of the Revolution were bred, as a
rule, in the hard school of experience, and, to most of them, the task
of writing was about as distasteful as taking a dose of unpalatable
medicine. The result has been that, while the world for one hundred and
twenty-five years has been fully informed of the superb heroism of John
Paul Jones, it has been kept in comparative ignorance of what his
contemporaries accomplished.
This is regrettable for more reasons than one, chief among which is
that, while Jones will be found to have suffered nothing by the
comparison, these humbler heroes of his day have not received the
recognition so justly due them. Of the twenty-nine officers who held the
rank of naval captain in our service during the Revolution, only a few
emerged from obscurity. They, like the great majority in all services,
were destined to perform that hardest of all professional work, the
monotonous routine duty incident to the carrying on of naval war.
There were a few, however, who had the good fortune to emerge from the
oblivion of naval drudgery, and, perhaps, the greatest of these is
Nicholas Biddle, of good Pennsylvania stock. He commanded the _Andrea
Doria_ in the first naval expedition of the war, Captain Jones (then a
lieutenant) serving in the same squadron aboard the flagship _Alfred_.
Jones shortly afterward won the immortal distinction of taking the
_Serapis_ while his own ship went down.
A year before the _Bonhomme Richard_-_Serapis_ fight, Biddle had the
unique distinction of both “going up” and “going down” in his ship, the
thirty-two gun frigate _Randolph_, in her engagement with the
ship-of-the-line _Yarmouth_. Jones’ bravery of Flamborough Head was
superb, but it does not equal the patriotism and noble sacrifice of
Biddle, who, in order to save his convoy of seven rich merchantmen laden
with goods indispensable to the American cause, unhesitatingly ran
alongside the monster ship-of-the-line and was blown up, 311 of the
_Randolph’s_ complement of 315 perishing, including Biddle—but the
convoy was saved. This was the noblest act of self-sacrifice on a large
scale, in the annals of the American navy. Earlier in the war Biddle,
while in command of the _Andrea Doria_, in a cruise of four months
captured ten English vessels, which, with the exception of two, reached
port in safety—two of the prizes containing 400 soldiers of a Highland
regiment.
While the immortal distinction of being the first man to hoist our
national colors aboard an American warship belongs to Captain Jones, the
by no means small honor of showing the American flag for the first time
on a regularly commissioned American warship in European waters belongs
to Captain Lambert Wickes, who crossed the Atlantic in the sixteen-gun
war brig _Reprisal_. Lambert made a cruise in the Bay of Biscay, and in
two circuits of Ireland took some twenty prizes.
Nor should the daring cruises of Captain Gustavus Conyngham in the
_Surprise_ be overlooked. One year before Captain Jones appeared on the
other side of the Atlantic as commander of an American warship,
Conyngham scoured the coast of England and picked up prizes in the very
chops of the English Channel. Our commissioner in Europe, Silas Deane,
wrote:
“Conyngham, by his first and second bold expeditions, is become the
terror of all the eastern coast of England and Scotland, and is more
dreaded than Thurot was in the late war.”
Then there were Captains Thomas Thompson and Elisha Hinman, who one year
before Captain Jones’ appearance in English waters, executed a dash
against a British fleet which is second in audacity only to Jones’
attack on the British fleet off Spurn Head. On the night of September 2,
1777, the thirty-two-gun frigate _Raleigh_, and the twenty-four-gun ship
_Alfred_, commanded by Captains Thompson and Hinman, while on their way
across the ocean, discovered a fleet of merchantmen, escorted by four
British warships, among them the _Druid_. Availing himself of the cover
of night, Thompson worked his way into the fleet undetected, and getting
alongside the _Druid_ opened a terrific fire on her so that in a short
time she was reduced to a sinking condition. Realizing the folly of
fighting the combined escort, Thompson then made good his escape, and
arrived safely in France with the _Raleigh_ and _Alfred_.
Nor should the daring of an American privateer be overlooked, which,
very much after the manner of Jones at Whitehaven, sent a force of men
ashore on English soil and made prisoners of a lieutenant and an
adjutant of a British regiment, as the following extract from the
private letter of an English gentleman will show:
“An American privateer of twelve guns came into this road [Guernsey]
yesterday morning, tacked about on the firing of guns from the castle,
and, just off the island, took a large brig bound for this port, which
they have since carried into Cherbourg. She had the impudence to send
her boat in the dusk of the evening to a little island off here called
Jetto, and unluckily carried off the lieutenant of Northley’s
Independent Company with the adjutant, who were shooting rabbits for
their diversion.”
Not only in English home waters were American naval efforts being
expended with conspicuous advantage to the cause before Jones appeared
on the scene, but in British colonial possessions our hardy mariners
created unprecedented havoc in the enemy’s commerce, which did much to
bring the mother country to terms. An English correspondent writing from
Jamaica under date of May 2, 1777, said that in one week upward of
fourteen English ships were carried into Martinique by American
warships. Another Englishman, writing from Grenada, April 18, 1777,
said:
“Everything continues excessively dear here, and we are happy if we can
get anything for money by reason of the quantity of vessels that are
taken by American privateers. A fleet of vessels came from Ireland a few
days ago. From sixty vessels that departed from Ireland, not above
twenty-five arrived in this and neighboring islands, the others (it is
thought) being all taken by the American privateers. God knows, if this
American war continues much longer, we shall all die of hunger. There
was a Guineaman that came from Africa with 450 negroes, some
thousand-weight of gold dust, and a great many elephant teeth; the whole
cargo being computed to be worth twenty thousand pounds sterling, taken
by an American privateer a few days ago.”
Captain Jones’ brilliant career does not suffer by a comparison with
these extraordinary achievements on the high seas. On the contrary, his
record is the more resplendent by the contrast. These incidents are
mentioned only to show that while Jones was the brightest star in the
galaxy of our naval heroes, “there were others” who contributed to the
lustre of American naval renown in the Revolution.
Having shown, briefly, the work done by other distinguished sea fighters
in our struggle for independence, we can better estimate the worth of
the truly great achievements of Captain John Paul Jones while in the
service of the United States. They suffer no diminution by having
Captain Jones shorn of the false title of “Admiral.” There have been
only three “Admirals” in the United States navy: Farragut, Porter, and
Dewey. The nearest approach to an admiral in our navy of the Revolution
was the title conferred upon Esek Hopkins, who was made
“commander-in-chief” of our sea forces, a rank intended to correspond to
that held by Washington on land. On the escape of the British warship
_Glasgow_, in Long Island Sound, 1776, Hopkins was unjustly blamed for
the mishap, and the title of “commander-in-chief of the navy” was
dropped.
Neither is it necessary to call Jones the “father of the American navy.”
If such a title could be properly applied to any one, that person is
John Adams, who, from the beginning, strenuously advocated the need of a
navy, and worked harder than any one man of his time for its
establishment on a permanent basis. The fame of Captain Jones needs none
of these artificial bolsters for its support. It stands on the solid
foundation of personal merit and nothing can add to or detract from it.
We have ample evidence of this in the extraordinary manifestation of
popular interest in the removal of his remains from a foreign soil to a
final resting place in America.
What has been said here about the exploits of other naval heroes in the
Revolution is used merely as a foil for the better setting off of the
great central figure of the navy of that period. What Biddle, Wickes,
Conyngham, Thompson, Hinman, and the American privateersmen did
separately, Jones did as one man.
After taking as commendable a part as a subordinate could in the
successful expedition to New Providence, he commanded the warship
_Providence_, and performed some of the most remarkable feats in
seamanship on record, besides inflicting serious losses on the enemy. As
commander of the _Alfred_, in which he began his American career as
lieutenant, he added to his reputation as a daring and successful
skipper. In the _Ranger_ he cruised in the Irish Sea with a boldness and
success that has never been surpassed, while his extraordinary career in
the _Bonhomme Richard_ stands unsurpassed in the annals of the world’s
naval history. Within the scope of his necessarily limited naval
activities, he has set a standard of professional excellence that
present and coming generations of naval aspirants will find difficult to
surpass.
EDGAR S. MACLAY.
_Evening Post_, N. Y.
THE MOONLIGHT BATTLE
We have much pleasure in presenting our subscribers with the first
engraving of Thomas Birch’s painting of John Paul Jones’ greatest
sea-fight.
It illustrates the desperate encounter at the moment when a
hand-grenade has been dropped from the _Bon Homme’s_ mainyard down a
hatchway of the _Serapis_, causing a terrible explosion.
In the distance can be seen the British merchant vessels, under the
protection of the guns of Scarborough Castle, as also the conflict
between the _Pallas_,—the only other ship of Jones’ squadron
actively engaged,—and the _Countess of Scarborough_, which also
ended in the defeat of the British vessel.
For the use of the plate we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. S.
V. Henkels, Philadelphia.
BURLEIGH—AND JOHNSON’S ISLAND
It is safe to surmise that several elderly Americans have watched the
news from Manchuria during the past winter with a half expectation of
reading of some wild adventure on the part of Bennet Burleigh,
correspondent of the London _Daily Telegraph_. Among these were Mr.
Justice Brown of the United States Supreme Court, who just forty years
ago secured his extradition from Canada on a nominal charge of robbery,
but really on account of his participation in the Johnson’s Island
conspiracy. Among them also was James Lattimore, once sheriff of Ottawa
County, O., from whose custody he escaped, but who seems to have very
pleasant recollections of his whilom prisoner, in spite of the fact that
his private purse was somewhat depleted in efforts to recover the
fugitive whose society he had found so agreeable that he had been in the
habit of taking him about the village of Port Clinton with him. There
may be living in Texas some of Burleigh’s journalistic associates
prepared for almost any deed of daring on his part. The sketch of his
career in “Who’s Who” reads as follows:
“Burleigh, Bennet, war correspondent, on the staff of the _Daily
Telegraph_ since 1882; b. Glasgow; married. Fought in American war
(twice sentenced to death); Central News correspondent throughout
first Egyptian war (present at Tel-el-Kebir); correspondent French
campaign Madagascar; as _Daily Telegraph_ correspondent accompanied
desert column from Korti to Metammah, 1884 (present at Abu Klea,
despatches); Ashanti expedition; Atbara expedition; Egyptian war
(present at Omdurman); South African war, 1899–1902. Address: 95 North
Side, Clapham Common, S. W.”
“Who’s Who” omits mention of several books of which he is the
author—“Desert Warfare,” “Two Campaigns: Madagascar and Ashantee.”
“Khartoum Campaign, 1898; or the Reconquest of the Soudan,” “Sirdar and
Khalifa,” and “Natal Campaign.” In _Harper’s Magazine_ for July, 1900,
Fred A. McKenzie says that for Burleigh to spend a day in battle and
then ride sixty miles, afterwards write a long and brilliant dispatch
and get it first through, is a trifle. He also says Burleigh is an
ardent Socialist and has several times been a labor candidate for
Parliament in Glasgow, that his favorite drink is soda-water, and that
he abjures tobacco. He adds: “When every outlet from the Transvaal was
closed, he boarded the train of the Boer General Joubert and traveled
with him, securing a long interview with him and full details of the
Boer intentions. He so won Joubert that the old general lent him a
conveyance to go over into British territory.” But, as the country
editor said of another brilliant newspaper correspondent, “Alas, not for
him the glittering hatchet, not for him the fruitful cherry tree.” It is
not true that Burleigh, or as he was then called, Bennet G. Burley, was
twice sentenced to death during the American Civil War, though it might
be said that twice he stood in some danger of being hanged by the
Federals, into whose hands he had fallen and against whom he had waged
irregular warfare. And both times he succeeded in escaping from custody.
Judge Daniel B. Lucas of Charlestown, W. Va., in his anonymously
published “Memoir of John Yates Beall,” says Burley was the son of a
Glasgow master mechanic and that when he first appeared in Richmond he
had in his pocket the plan of a submarine battery invented by his
father. He had also a plan for a torpedo that could be attached to the
side of a vessel by screws and then ignited with a fuse. Judge Lucas
asserts that Burley actually assisted one John Maxwell to fasten such a
torpedo to a Union war vessel, but the fuse refused to ignite, no damage
was done, and the torpedo found its way to New York, where it was
exhibited at the corner of Fulton and Nassau streets. At a later date a
Northern newspaper printed a story that before coming to America Burley
had fought in Italy both with the Garibaldians and against them: but
whether this be true or not, there is no question that he was engaged
with Beall in certain small privateering enterprises in the waters of
Eastern Virginia, or that he took part in a raid across Chesapeake Bay
under Capt. Thad Fitzhugh in March, 1864, when the raiders captured the
steam tug _Titan_ and destroyed another vessel. May 12, Burley was
himself wounded and captured near the mouth of the Rappahannock River by
a skirmish guard of the 36th United States Colored Infantry, and he had
to surrender to black men, for no officers came up until the fighting
was over. On his person were found papers authorizing him to go beyond
the Confederate lines, and it was suspected that he had on foot some
adventure as a spy. He was taken to Fort Delaware, forty miles below
Philadelphia, whence he and five others attempted their escape through a
sewer, the water in which came up to the log sleepers supporting the
plank cover. The fugitives had to make their way for a distance of about
twenty-five yards along this sewer, diving under each sleeper as they
came to it, and upon reaching its mouth to swim the Delaware River for a
distance of a mile and a half, with a tide running that more than
doubled the effort necessary to cover the distance. Two of them were
captured at the mouth of the sewer, and two were drowned in the river,
but Burley and a companion, thanks to the Scotchman’s extraordinary
physical powers, got away safely, being picked up in mid river by a
vessel whose master professed to accept their story that they had been
upset while on a fishing excursion, and took them to Philadelphia.
Burley thence made his way to Canada, and in Toronto he fell in with his
old associate in Eastern Virginia, John Y. Beall. Judge Lucas, who
narrates these adventures, probably got his account of them from Burley
himself.
Unlike the other Great Lake cities, Sandusky, O., lies not on a narrow
creek, but upon the shore of a broad bay which encloses Johnson’s
Island, about 300 acres in extent. The island and the surrounding waters
present a very pleasing aspect, and the Sandusky people are grievously
disappointed that this site was not selected for the Great Lake naval
training station by the board which recently decided upon a point on
Lake Michigan. It is worth noting that the convincing objection to any
site on Lake Erie, its ease of access from a foreign and possibly
hostile country, was the very cause of much official anxiety at the only
time Johnson’s Island was used for a national purpose. For in October,
1861, the Government established here a dépôt for captured Confederate
officers, whose numbers after the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson
ran up to between two and three thousand. They were confined within a
stockade enclosing an area of fifteen acres, being housed in thirteen
two-story barracks and guarded by two blockhouses, one at a corner of
the palisade and one at the gate, so situated that it looked down the
street between the two rows of barracks. One of these blockhouses, with
the prison cemetery and the ruins of two earth forts, now forms the only
relic of the island’s occupation by the Confederates. The cemetery
contains 206 uniform marble slabs erected after the war by the Southern
people. The whole number of Confederates buried here was about 230, five
at least of whom were executed by the Federal authorities for atrocious
treatment of Southern Unionists, enlisting troops within the Federal
lines, and similar offenses. The graves on the island have for years
been regularly decorated with flowers by the Sandusky Grand Army men
when they were paying the same tribute to the memory of their comrades
buried on the mainland, and they have even been subjected to some
criticism for this display of magnanimity. One sometimes sees statements
that none of the prisoners ever succeeded in escaping from Johnson’s
Island, but in the Burley extradition proceedings Capt. Robert C.
Kennedy, who was afterwards hanged for his part in the plot to burn New
York, swore that he had effected such an escape.