"Then felt I as some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific."

Following this I had written by request a volume on the Navy in the War of Secession, entitled The Gulf and Inland Waters; my first appearance as an author. Herein also I had recognized that the same class of military ideas took possession of my mind. I felt, therefore, that I should bring interest and understanding to my task, and hoped that the defects of knowledge, which I clearly realized, would be overcome. I recalled also that at the Military Academy my father, though professor only of engineering, military and civil, had of his own motion introduced a course of strategy and grand tactics, which had commended itself to observers. I trusted, therefore, that heredity, too, might come to my aid.

As acceptance placed me on the road which led directly to all the success I have had in life, I feel impelled to acknowledge my indebtedness to Admiral Luce. With little constitutional initiative, and having grown up in the atmosphere of the single cruiser, of commerce-destroying, defensive warfare, and indifference to battle-ships; an anti-imperialist, who for that reason looked upon Mr. Blaine as a dangerous man; at forty-five I was drifting on the lines of simple respectability as aimlessly as one very well could. My environment had been too much for me; my present call changed it. Meantime, however, there was delay. A relief would not be sent, because the ship was to go home; and the ship did not go home because there was, first, a revolution in Panama, and then a war between the Central American states, both which required the Wachusett's presence. Mr. Cleveland was elected at this time; there was a change of administration, and with a new Secretary a lapse of Departmental interest. The ship did not go to San Francisco till September, 1885, nearly a year after the admiral's proposition reached me.

The year had not been unfruitful, however. Naturally predisposed, as I have said, my mind ran continually on my subject. I imagined various formations for developing to the best effect the powers of steamships, and sudden changes to be instituted as the moment of collision approached, calculated to disconcert the opponent, or to surprise an advantage before he could parry. Spinning cobwebs out of one's unassisted brain, without any previous absorption from external sources, was doubtless a somewhat crude process; yet it had advantages. One of my manoeuvres was to pass a column of ships by an unexpected flank movement across the head of an enemy's column. This I have since heard called "capping;" if, at least, I correctly understand that word. Putting it afterwards before a body of officers attending the College course, all men of years and experience, one said to me, derisively, "Do you suppose an enemy would let you do that?" "It is a question of how quick he is," I replied. "In these days of twelve or fifteen knots he will have no time to ponder, and scarcely time to act." The query illustrates a habit of mind frequently met. It is like discussing the merits of a thrust en carte. If the other man is quick enough, he will parry; if not, he will be run through: sooner or later the more skilful usually will get in.

Naval history gave me more anxiety, and I afterwards found it was that which Luce particularly desired of me. I shared the prepossession, common at that time, that the naval history of the past was wholly past; of no use at all to the present. I well recall, during my first term at the College, a visit from a reporter of one of the principal New York journals. He was a man of rotund presence, florid face, thrown-back head, and flowing hair, with all that magisterial condescension which the environment of the Fourth Estate nourishes in its fortunate members; the Roman citizen was "not in it" for birthright. To my bad luck a plan of Trafalgar hung in evidence, as he stalked from room to room. "Ah," he said, with superb up-to-date pity, "you are still talking about Trafalgar;" and I could see that Trafalgar and I were thenceforth on the top shelf of fossils in the collections of his memory. This point of view was held by very many. "You won't find much to say about history," was the direct discouraging comment of an older officer. On the other hand, Sir Geoffrey Hornby, less well known in this country than in Great Britain, where twenty years ago he was recognized as the head of the profession, distinctly commended to me the present value of naval history. I myself, as I have just confessed, had had the contrary impression—a tradition passively accepted. Thus my mind was troubled how to establish relations between yesterday and to-day; so wholly ignorant was I of the undying reproduction of conditions in their essential bearings—a commonplace of military art.

He who seeks, finds, if he does not lose heart; and to me, continuously seeking, came from within the suggestion that control of the sea was an historic factor which had never been systematically appreciated and expounded. Once formulated consciously, this thought became the nucleus of all my writing for twenty years then to come; and here I may state at once what I conceive to have been my part in popularizing, perhaps in making effective, an argument for which I could by no means claim the rights of discovery. Not to mention other predecessors, with the full roll of whose names I am even now unacquainted, Bacon and Raleigh, three centuries before, had epitomized in a few words the theme on which I was to write volumes. That they had done so was, indeed, then unknown to me. For me, as for them, the light dawned first on my inner consciousness; I owed it to no other man. It has since been said by more than one that no claim for originality could be allowed me; and that I wholly concede. What did fall to me was, that no one since those two great Englishmen had undertaken to demonstrate their thesis by an analysis of history, attempting to show from current events, through a long series of years, precisely what influence the command of the sea had had upon definite issues; in brief, a concrete illustration. In the preface to my first work on the subject, for the success of which I was quite unprepared, I stated this as my aim: "An estimate of the effect of Sea Power upon the course of history and the prosperity of nations; ... resting upon a collection of special instances, in which the precise effect has been made clear by an analysis of the conditions at the given moments." This field had been left vacant, yielding me my opportunity; and concurrently therewith, untouched from the point of view proposed by me, there lay the whole magnificent series of events constituting maritime history since the days of Raleigh and Bacon, after the voyages of Columbus and De Gama gave the impetus to over-sea activities, colonies, and commerce, which distinguishes the past three hundred years. Even of this limited period I have occupied but a part, though I fear I have skimmed the cream of that which it offers; but back behind it lie virgin fields, in the careers of the Italian republics, and others yet more remote in time, which can never be for me to narrate, although I have examined them attentively.

I cannot now reconstitute from memory the sequence of my mental processes; but while my problem was still wrestling with my brain there dawned upon me one of those concrete perceptions which turn inward darkness into light—give substance to shadow. The Wachusett was lying at Callao, the seaport of Lima, as dull a coast town as one could dread to see. Lima being but an hour distant, we frequently spent a day there; the English Club extending to us its hospitality. In its library was Mommsen's History of Rome, which I gave myself to reading, especially the Hannibalic episode. It suddenly struck me, whether by some chance phrase of the author I do not know, how different things might have been could Hannibal have invaded Italy by sea, as the Romans often had Africa, instead of by the long land route; or could he, after arrival, have been in free communication with Carthage by water. This clew, once laid hold of, I followed up in the particular instance. It and the general theory already conceived threw on each other reciprocal illustration; and between the two my plan was formed by the time I reached home, in September, 1885. I would investigate coincidently the general history and naval history of the past two centuries, with a view to demonstrating the influence of the events of the one upon the other. Original research was not within my scope, nor was it necessary to the scheme thus outlined.

Perhaps it is only a subtle form of egotism, but as a condition of my life experience I could wish to convey to others an appreciation of my profound ignorance of both classes of history when I began, being then forty-five; not that I mean to imply that now, or at any time since, I have deluded myself with the imagination that I have become an historian after the high modern pattern. I tackled my job much as I presume an immigrant begins a clearing in the wilderness, not troubling greatly which tree he takes first. I laid my hands on whatever came along, reading with the profound attention of one who is looking for something; and the something was kind enough to acknowledge my devotion by shining forth in unexpected ways and places. Any line of investigation, however unsystematic in method, branches out in many directions, suggests continually new sources of information, to one interested in his work; and I have felt constantly the force of Johnson's dictum as to the superior profit from time spent in reading what is congenial over the drudgery of constrained application. Every faculty I possessed was alive and jumping. Incidentally, I took up the study of land warfare, using Jomini and Hamley. For naval history the first book upon which I chanced—the word is exact—was just what I needed at that stage. It was a history of the French navy, by a Lieutenant Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, published about 1845. As naval history pure and simple, I think little of it; but the author had a quiet, philosophical way of summing up causes and effects in general history, as connected with maritime affairs, which not only corresponded closely with my own purpose, but suggested to me new material for thought—novel illustration. Such treatment was with him only casual, but it opened to me new prospects.

It would be difficult to define precisely to what degree the art of naval warfare had been formulated, or even consciously conceived, in 1885. There could scarcely be said to exist any systematic treatment, or extensive commentary by acknowledged experts, such as for generations had illuminated the theory of land warfare. Naval histories abounded, but by far the most part were simply narratives. Some valuable research, however, had then recently been done; notably by Captain Chevalier, of the French navy, who had produced from French documents a history of the maritime war connected with the American struggle for independence. This he followed with a less exhaustive account of the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, which also appeared in time for me to use. These were marked by running comment, rather than by a studied criticism such as that of Jomini or Napier. In Great Britain, James held, and I think still holds, the field for exhaustive collection of information, documentary or oral in origin, during the period treated by him, 1793-1815; but he has not a military idea in his head beyond that of downright hard fighting, punishing and being punished. In his pages, to take a tactical advantage seems almost a disgrace. The Navy Records Society of Great Britain had not then begun the fruitful labors which within the last decade and a half has made accessible in print a very large amount of new matter; nor had the late Admiral Colomb published his comprehensive book, Naval Warfare. So far as I was concerned, the old works of Lediard, Entick, Campbell, Beatson,—in French, Paul Hoste, Troude, Guerin, and others equally remote,—had to be my main reliance; though numerous modern scattered monographs, English and French, were existent. In connection with these one of my most interesting experiences was lighting upon a paper in the Revue Maritime et Coloniale, describing in full the Four Days' battle between the English and Dutch in 1666. It purported to be, and I have no doubt was, from a personal letter recently discovered; but I subsequently found it almost word for word in the Memoires du Comte de Guiche, also a participant, printed in 1743. This Revue contained many able and suggestive articles, historical and professional, as did the British Journal of the United Service Institution; each being in its own country a principal medium for the exchange of professional views. Conspicuous in these contributions to naval history and thought, in England, were Admiral Colomb and Professor Laughton; upon the last named of whom, since these words were first written, has been bestowed the honor of knighthood, a recognition in the evening of life which will be heartily welcomed by his many naval friends on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, apart from the first-hand inquiry which I did not yet attempt, the material available in 1885 was chiefly histories written long before, supplemented by a great many scattered papers of more recent date.

Before leaving this part of my experience I will say a good word for Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, so far as his own work—down to 1744—is concerned. Under this title it is really a history of the British navy, very well done for enabling a professional man to understand the naval operations; but, more than this, maritime occurrences of other sorts, commercial movement, and naval policy, are presented clearly, and with sufficient fulness to illustrate the influence of sea power in its broadest sense upon the general history. Bearing, as it does, strong indications of a full use of accessible accounts, contemporary with the events narrated, I know no naval work superior to it for lucidity and breadth of treatment. Campbell was he of whom Dr. Johnson said: "Campbell is a good man, a pious man; I am afraid he has not been inside a church for many years; but he never passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows he has good principles."

In history other than naval I was for my object as fortunate as I had been in Lapeyrouse-Bonfils. An accident first placed in my hands Henri Martin's History of France. I happened to see the volumes, then unknown to me, on the shelves of a friend. The English translation of Martin covered only the reigns of Louis XIV. and XV., and of Louis XVI. to 1783, the close of the War of American Independence. The scope of my first book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, coincides precisely with this period, and may thus have been determined. I think, however, that the beginning of the work was fixed for me by the essentially new departure in the history of England and France, connoted by the almost simultaneous accession of Charles II. and Louis XIV.; while the end was dictated by the necessity to stop and take breath. Besides, I had to lecture, which for the moment interrupted both reading and writing. The particular value of Martin to me was the attention paid by him to commercial and maritime policy, as shown in those frank methods of national regulation which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries characterized all governments, but were to be seen in their simplest and most efficient executive operation in an absolute monarchy. A more advanced age may doubt the wisdom of such manipulation of trade; but in the hands of a genius like Colbert it became a very active and powerful force, the workings of which were the more impressive for their directness. They could be easily followed. Whatever Martin's views on political economy, he was in profound sympathy with Colbert as an administrator, and enlarged much on his commercial policy as conducing to the financial stability upon which that great statesman sought to found the primacy of his country. To one as ignorant as I was of mercantile movement, the story of Colbert's methods, owing to their pure autocracy, was a kind of introductory primer to this element of sea power. Thus received, the impression was both sharper and deeper. New light was shed upon, and new emphasis given to, the commonplace assertion of the relations between commerce and a navy; civil and military sea power. While I have no claim to mastery of the arguments for and against free trade and protection, Colbert, as expounded by Martin, sent me in later days to the study of trade statistics; as indicative of naval or political conditions deflecting commercial interchange, and influencing national prosperity. The strong interest such searches had for me may show a natural bent, and certainly conduced to the understanding of sea power in its broadest sense. Martin set my feet in the way, though Campbell helped me much by incidental mention.

It is now accepted with naval and military men who study their profession, that history supplies the raw material from which they are to draw their lessons, and reach their working conclusions. Its teachings are not, indeed, pedantic precedents; but they are the illustrations of living principles. Napoleon is reported to have said that on the field of battle the happiest inspiration is often but a recollection. The authority of Jomini chiefly set me to study in this fashion the many naval histories before me. From him I learned the few, very few, leading considerations in military combination; and in these I found the key by which, using the record of sailing navies and the actions of naval leaders, I could elicit, from the naval history upon which I had looked despondingly, instruction still pertinent. The actual course of the several campaigns, or of the particular battles, I worked out as one does any historical conclusion, by comparison of the individual witnesses presented in the several accounts; but the result of this constructive process became to me something more than a narrative. Both the general outcome and the separate incidents passed through tests which formed in me an habitual critical habit of mind. My judgments, one or all, might be erroneous; but, right or wrong, what I brought before myself was no mere portrayal, accurate as I could achieve, but a rational whole, of composite cause and effect, with its background and foreground, its centre of interest and argument, its greater and smaller details, its decisive culmination; for even to a drawn battle or a neutral issue there is something which definitely prevented success. It was the same with questions of naval policy. Jomini's dictum, that the organized forces of the enemy are ever the chief objective, pierces like a two-edged sword to the joints and marrow of many specious propositions; to that of the French postponement of immediate action to "ulterior objects," or to Jefferson's reliance upon raw citizen soldiery, a mob ready disorganized to the enemy's hands when he saw fit to lay on. From Jomini also I imbibed a fixed disbelief in the thoughtlessly accepted maxim that the statesman and general occupy unrelated fields. For this misconception I substituted a tenet of my own, that war is simply a violent political movement; and from an expression of his, "The sterile glory of fighting battles merely to win them," I deduced, what military men are prone to overlook, that "War is not fighting, but business."

It was with such hasty equipment that I approached my self-assigned task, to show how the control of the sea, commercial and military, had been an object powerful to influence the policies of nations; and equally a mighty factor in the success or failure of those policies. This remained my guiding aim; but incidentally thereto I had by this determined to prepare a critical analysis of the naval campaigns and battles, a decision for which I had to thank Jomini chiefly. This would constitute in measure a treatment of the art of naval war; not formal, nor systematic, but in the nature of commentary, developing and illustrating principles. I may interject, as possibly suggestive to professional men, that such current comment on historical events will lead them on, as it led me irresistibly, to digest the principles thus drawn out; reproducing them in concise definitions, applicable to the varying circumstances of naval warfare,—an elementary treatise. This I did also, somewhat later, in a series of lectures; which, though necessarily rudimentary, I understand still form a groundwork of instruction at the War College. For the framework of general history, which was to serve as a setting to my particular thesis, I relied upon the usual accredited histories of the period, as I did upon equally well-known professional histories for the nautical details. The subject lay so much on the surface that my handling of it could scarcely suffer materially from possible future discoveries. What such or such an unknown man had said or done on some back-stairs, or written to some unknown correspondent, if it came to light, was not likely to affect the received story of the external course of military or political events. Did I make a mistake in the detail of some battle, as I got one fleet on the wrong tack in Byng's action, or as in the much-argued case of Torrington at Beachy Head, it would for my leading purpose do little more harm than a minor tactical error does to the outcome of a large strategic plan, when accurately conceived. As a colleague phrased it to me, speaking of the cautious deliberation of some men, "A second-best position to-day is better than a first-best to-morrow, when the occasion has passed." Strike while the iron is hot! and between reading and thinking my iron was very hot by the time I laid it on the anvil. Moreover, I had to meet the emergency of lecturing, one of the main reliances of our incipient undertaking.

I had begun my reading with Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, in October, 1885. The preceding summer at Panama had so far affected my health as to cause a month's severe illness in the winter; and when recovered I unguardedly let myself in for another month's work, on naval tactics, which might have been postponed. Hence the end of the following May had arrived before I began to write; but I was so full of matter, absorbed or evolved, that I ran along with steady pace, and by September had on paper, in lecture form, all of my first Sea Power book, except the summary of conclusions which constitutes the final chapter. Before publication, in 1890, the whole had been very carefully revised; but the changes made were mostly in the details of battles, or else verbal in character, to develop discussions in amplitude or clearness. Battles had been to me at first a secondary consideration; hence for revision I had accumulated many fresh data, notably from two somewhat scarce books: Naval Battles in the West Indies, by Lieutenant Matthews, and Naval Researches, by Captain Thomas White, British officers contemporary and participant in the events which they narrate of the War of American Independence.

A lecturer is little hampered by the exactions of style; indeed, the less he ties himself to his manuscript, the more he can talk to his audience rather than read, and the more freely his command of his subject permits him to digress pertinently, the better he holds attention. When I found after my first course that the treatment was to my hearers interesting as well as novel, the thought of publishing entered my mind; and while I had no expectation or ambition to become a stylist, the question of style gradually forced itself on my consideration. I intend to state some of my conclusions, because the casual remarks of others, authors or critics, have been helpful to me. Why should not style as well as war have its history and biography, to which each man may contribute an unpretentious mite? Notably, I got much comfort from Darwin's complaint of frequent recurrences of inability to give adequate expression to thoughts, which he could then put down only in such crude, imperfect form as the moment suggested, leaving the task of elaboration to a more propitious season. If so great a man was thus troubled, no strange thing was happening to me in a like experience. Such good cheer in intellectual as well as moral effort is one of the best services of biography and history, raising to the rank of ministering spirits the men whose struggles and success they tell. Was not Washington greater at Valley Forge than at Yorktown? and Nelson beating against a head wind than at Trafalgar? Johnson has anticipated Darwin's method in advice given in his Gargantuan manner: "Do not exact from yourself, at one effort of excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as they arise in the first words that occur, and, when you have matter, you will easily give it form." To Trollope I owed a somewhat different practical maxim. His theory Was that a man could turn out manuscript as steadily as a shoemaker shoes—his precise simile, if I remember; and he prided himself on penning his full tale each day. I could not subscribe to this, and think that Trollope's work, of which I am fond, shows the bad effect; but I did imbibe contempt for yielding to the feeling of incapacity, and put myself steadily to my desk for my allotted time, writing what I could. Whether the result were ten words or ten hundred I tried to regard With equanimity.

I have never purpose attempted to imitate the style of any writer, though I unscrupulously plagiarize an apt expression. But gradually, and almost unconsciously, I formed a habit of closely scrutinizing the construction of sentences by others; generally a fault-finding habit. As I progressed, I worked out a theory for myself, just as I had the theory of the influence of sea power. Style, I said, has two sides. It is first and above all the expression of a man's personality, as characteristic as any other trait; or, as some one has said—was it Buffon?—style is the man himself. From this point of view it is susceptible of training, of development, or of pruning; but to attempt to pattern it on that of another person is a mistake. For one chance of success there are a dozen of failure; for you are trying to raise a special product from a soil probably uncongenial, or a fruit from an alien stem—figs from vines. But beyond this there is to style an artificial element, which I conceive to be indicated by the word technique as applied to the arts; though it is possible that I misapprehend the term, being ignorant of art. In authorship I understand by technique mainly the correct construction of periods, by the proper collocation of their parts. I subscribe heartily to the opinion I have seen attributed to Stevenson, that everything depends upon the order of the words; and this, in my judgment, should make the sentence as nearly as possible independent of punctuation.

Further, there are many awkwardnesses of expression which proper training or subsequent practice can eliminate; and in proportion as a writer attains the faculty of instinctively avoiding these, his technique improves. Perfected, he would never use them, and his sentences would flow untaught from his pen in absolutely clear reflection of his thought. As an example of what I mean by awkwardnesses, I would cite the use of "whose" as the possessive of "which." I know that adequate authority pronounces this correct, so it is not on that score I reject it. Moreover, I recognize that in myself the repulsion is somewhat of an acquired taste. When I began to write I thus employed it myself, but its sound is so inevitably suggestive of "who" as to constitute an impertinence of association. I have lately been reading a very excellent history of the United States, in which the frequent repetition of "whose" in this sense causes me the sensation of perpetually "stubbing" my toe; an Americanism, which, I will explain to any British reader, means stumbling over roots or on an unequal pavement, the irritation of which needs not exposition.

In the matter of natural style I soon discovered that the besetting anxiety of my soul was to be exact and lucid. I might not succeed, but my wish was indisputable. To be accurate in facts and correct in conclusions, both as to appreciation and expression, dominated all other motives. This had a weak side. I was nervously susceptible to being convicted of a mistake; it upset me, as they say. Even where a man writes, this is a defect of a quality; in active life it entails slowness of decision and procrastination, failure "to get there." I have no doubt that much contemporary writing suffers delay from a like morbid dread as to possibility of error. The aim to be thus both accurate and clear often encumbered my sentences. My cautious mind strove to introduce between the same two periods every qualification, whether in abatement or enforcement of the leading idea or statement. This in many cases meant an accumulation of clauses, over which I exercised my ingenuity and lavished my time so to arrange them that the whole should be at once apprehended by the reader. It was not enough for me that the qualifications should appear a page or two before, or after, and in this I think myself right; but in wanting them all in the same period, as I instinctively did,—and do, for nature is obstinate,—I have imposed on myself needless labor, and have often taxed attention as an author has no right to do. Unless under pressing necessity, I myself will not be at pains to read what I can with difficulty understand.

It is to this anxiety for full and accurate development of statements and ideas that I chiefly attribute a diffuseness with which my writing has been reproached; I have no doubt justly. I have not, however, tried to check the evil at the root. I am built that way, and think that way; all round a subject, as far as I can see it. I am uneasy if a presentment err by defect, by excess, or by obscurity apparent to myself. I must get the whole in; and for due emphasis am very probably redundant. I am not willing to attempt seriously modifying my natural style, the reflection of myself, lest, while digging up the tares of prolixity I root up also the wheat of precision. The difference emphasized by Dr. Johnson, "between notions borrowed from without and notions generated within," seems to me to apply to the mode of expression as well as to the idea expressed. The two spring from the same source, and correspond. You impress more forcibly by retaining your native manner of statement; chastened where necessary, but not defaced by an imitation, even of a self-erected, yet artificial, standard. It does not do to meddle too much with yourself. But I do resort to a weeding process in revising; a verb or an adjective, an expletive or a superlative, is dragged out and cast away. Even so, as often as not, I have to add. The words above, "as far as I can see it," have just been put in. Of course, in the interest of readers, I resort to breaking up sentences; but to me personally the result is usually distasteful. The reader takes hold more easily, as a child learns spelling by division into syllables; but I am conscious that instead of my thoughts constituting a group mutually related, and so reproducing the essential me, they are disjointed and must be reassembled by others.

A man untrained in youth, and who has never systematically sought to repair the defect, can scarcely hope fully to compass technique in style. He will thus lose some part of that which he may gain by being more nearly his natural self; for there is a real gain in this. Such advance as I have made in technique—and I trust I have made some—I have owed to the critical running analysis of the construction of sentences, which has been my habit ever since I began to write. That this is constant with me, subconsciously, is shown by the frequency with which it passes into a conscious logical recasting of what I read. To get antecedents and consequents as near one another as possible; qualifying words or phrases as close as may be to that which they qualify; an object near its verb; to avoid an adjective which applies to one of two nouns being so placed as to seem to qualify both; such minute details seem to me worthy of the utmost care, and I think I can trace advance in these respects. My experiments tend to show that the natural order of nominative, verb, object, is usually preferable; and as a rule I find that adverbs and adverbial phrases fall best between nominative and verb. Still, the desirability of tying each period to its predecessor, as does the rhyme of the fourth and fifth lines of a sonnet, will modify arrangement. In reading another author, where such precaution as I name is neglected, a word misplaced in its relation to the others of the sentence runs my mind off the track, like an engine on a misplaced switch, and I dislike the trouble of backing to get on the right rails. It is the same with my own work, if time enough elapses between composition and subsequent reading. Generally I make such time, either in manuscript or proofs; but I am chagrined when I meet slips in the printed page, as I too often do. There is no provision against such fault equal to laying the text aside till it has become unfamiliar; but even this is not certain, for construction, being consonant to your permanent mode of thinking, may not when erroneous jar upon you as upon another.

In acquiring an automatic habit, which technique should become, principles tend to crystallize into rules, and a few such I have; counsels of perfection many of these, too often unrealized. I do not like the same word repeated in the same paragraph, though this lays a heavy tax on so-called synonymes. Assonances jar me, even two terminations "tion" near together. I will not knowingly use "that" for "which," except to avoid two "whiches" between the same two periods. The split infinitive I abhor, more as a matter of taste than argument. I recognize that it is at times very tempting to snuggle the adverb so close to the verb; but I hold fast my integrity. Once, indeed, I took it into my head not to split compound tenses, and carried this fad somewhat remorselessly through a series of republished articles; but the result has not pleased me. Boswell tells us that Johnson would have none of "former" and "latter;" that he would rather repeat the noun than resort to this subterfuge. I see no good reason for rejecting these convenient alternatives; but nevertheless I have obsequiously bowed to the autocrat and taken a skunner to the words—the only literary snobbishness of which I am conscious. I can stand out against Macaulay's proscription of prepositions ending sentences. Although I generally twist them round, they often please my ear there. It is not exactly in point, but I have always rejoiced over "Silver was nothing accounted of" in the days of King Solomon; indeed, I was brought to book by a proofreader for concluding a sentence with "accounted of." I let it stand, so taking was it to me.

The question doubtless occurs to most authors how far they are under bonds to the King's English. As to grammar, I submit; the consequences of anarchy dismay me; but I question whether in words coinage is an attribute of sovereignty. There is, of course, plenty of false money going around, current because accepted; but I think a man is at liberty to pass a new word, a word without authority in dictionaries, if it be congruous to standard etymology. I once wrote "eventless;" but, on looking, found it not. Yet why not? "Homeless," "heartless," "shoeless," etc.; why merely "uneventful," a form only one letter longer, it is true, but built up to "eventful" to be pulled down to "uneventful"? Besides, "uneventful" does not mean the same as "eventless." "Doubtless" and "undoubtedly" differ by more than a shade in sense, and we have both. So we have "anywhere," "nowhere," "somewhere," "everywhere;" why not "manywhere," if you need it? Again, if "hitherto" be good—and it is—why not "thitherto"? In the case of "eccentric" as a military term, I felt forced to frame "ex-centric;" the former—I ask Dr. Johnson's pardon—has, in America at least, become so exclusively associated with the secondary though cognate idea of singularity that it would not convey its restricted military significance to a lay reader.

I had been assigned to the War College in October, 1885, Admiral Luce being still its president, but I did not go into residence until the end of the following August. Luce had then been for some months detached, to command the North Atlantic fleet, and I had succeeded him by default, without special orders that I can remember. He was anxious for me to live on the spot, to be "on deck," as he phrased it, for the College had many enemies and few friends; and matters were not helped by a sharp official collision that summer between him and Secretary Whitney, who from indifference passed into antagonism. I cannot say that his change was due to this cause, and for a long time his hostility did not take form in act. Now that the College, after twenty years, has had the warm encomium of the President of the United States in his message to Congress, it is interesting to a veteran recipient of its early buffets to recall conditions. In my two years' incumbency we got decidedly more kicks than halfpence. Yet in retrospect it gains. A prominent New York lawyer once told me of a young man from a distant State consulting him with a view to practising in the city. In response to some cautious warning as to the difficulties, he said: "Do you mean that with my education and capacity I cannot expect rapid success?" "I fear not," replied the mentor. A few months later they met casually. "Are you getting on as fast as you had hoped?" asked the older man. "No," admitted the other, "but it's heaps of fun." He doubtless got on, and so did the College. I at the time was less appreciative of the fun, but I liked the work, and now I see also the comical side.

Between the early favor of the Department and his own energy, Luce had given the College a good send-off, like a skiff shoved by hand from the wharf into mid-stream. There remained only to keep it moving. We had an appropriation, and a building that was ready for lecturing; with also two as yet uncompleted suites of quarters, for myself and one other officer. We had also a very respectable library, in which, among many valuable works, conspicuously selected with an eye to our special objects, I recall with amusement certain ancient encyclopaedias, contributed apparently by well-wishers from stock which had begun to encumber their shelves. Howbeit, like Quaker guns, these made a brave show if not too closely scrutinized, and spared us the semblance of poverty in vacant spaces. Every military man understands the value of an imposing front towards the enemy. When I arrived, I was the sole occupant of the building; and except an army officer—now General Tasker Bliss—was the only attache. As I walked round the lonely halls and stairways, I might have parodied Louis XIV., and said, "Le College, c'est moi." I had, indeed, an excellent steward, who attended to my meals and made my bed. There was but one lamp available, which I had to carry with me when I went from room to room by night; and, indeed, except for the roof over my head, I might be said to be "camping out." There was yet a month before the class of officers was to arrive. This interval was more than occupied preparing the necessary maps for my lectures, much of the time by my lonely light. Owing to lack of regular assistance, a great part of the map work was done by my own hands, often sprawled on the floor as my best table; though I was fortunate in receiving much voluntary help from a retired lieutenant, now Captain McCarty Little, then and always an enthusiastic advocate of the College, who did some of the drafting and all the coloring. Thus were put together three of the four maps which afterwards appeared in my first book. The fourth, of the North Atlantic Ocean, was begged of the hydrographer of the navy; a friendly Rhode Island man.

Besides the maps, there were to be produced some twenty or more battle plans. For these I hit on a device which I can recommend. I cut out a number of cardboard vessels, of different colors for the contending navies, and these I moved about on a sheet of drawing-paper until satisfied that the graphic presentation corresponded with facts and conditions. They were then fastened in place with mucilage. This saved a great deal of drawing in and rubbing out, and by using complementary colors gave vivid impression. In combats of sailing fleets you must look out sharp, or in some arrangement, otherwise plausible, you will have a ship sailing within four points of the wind before you know it. Nor is this the only way truth may be insulted. Times and distances also lay snares for incautious steps. I noticed once in an account of an action two times, with corresponding positions, which made a frigate in the meanwhile run at eighteen knots under topsails.

By such shifts we scrambled along as best we could our first year, content with beef without horseradish, as Sam Weller has it; hitching up with rope when a trace gave way, in the blessed condition of those who are not expecting favors. But worse was to come. Besides the general offence against conservatism by being a new thing, the College specifically had poached its building from another manor. It stood upon the grounds of the Naval Training Station, for apprentices, which considered itself defrauded of property and intruded upon by an alien jurisdiction—an imperium in imperio. The two were not even under the same bureau, so the antagonism existed in Washington as well as locally; and now a Secretary of malevolent neutrality. Truly some one was needed "on deck;" though just what he could do with such a barometer did not appear, unless he bore up under short canvas, like Nelson, who "made it a rule never to fight the northwesters." And such was very much our policy; reefed close down, looking out for squalls at any moment from any quarter, saying nothing to nobody, content to be let alone, if only we might be so let. Small sail; and no weather helm, if you please. One most alleviating circumstance was the commandant of the training station, the local enemy, one of the born saints of the earth, Arthur Yates. Officially, of course he disapproved of us; professional self-respect and precedent, bureau allegiance, and all the rest of it, were outraged; but when it came to deeds, Yates could not have imagined an unkind act, much less done it. Nor did he stop there; good-will with him was not a negative but an active quality. What we wanted he would always do, and then go one better, if he could find a way to add to our convenience; and when we ultimately came to grief, after his departure, he wrote me a letter of condolence. Altogether, while clouds were gathering in Washington, it was perpetual sunshine at home as to official and personal relations. I have no doubt he would have drawn maps for me had I asked it.

None the less, trouble was at hand. In 1886 we had a session which by general consent was very successful in quality, if not in quantity, lasting little over two months. Our own bureau controlled the ordering of officers, so it swept together a sufficient number to form a class. We had several excellent series of lectures: on Gunnery in its higher practical aspects, by Lieutenant Meigs, who has since left the navy for a responsible position in the Bethlehem Iron Works; on International Law, by Professor Soley, who under the next administration became Assistant-Secretary of the Navy; on Naval Hygiene, by a naval surgeon, Dr. Dean; together with others less notable. All these had been contracted for by Luce. Captain Bliss and myself, as yet the only two permanent attaches, of course took our share. So much was new to the officers in attendance, not only in details but in principle, that I am satisfied nine-tenths of them went away friendly; some enthusiastic. The College had steered clear of any appearance of scientific, or so-called post-graduate, instruction, consecutive with that given at Annapolis; and had demonstrated that it meant to deal only with questions pertinent to the successful carrying-on of war, for promoting which no instrumentality existed elsewhere. The want had been proved, and a means of filling it offered. The listeners had been persuaded.

I well remember my own elation when they went away in the latter part of November. Success had surpassed expectation. But in a fortnight Congress met, and it soon became evident that we were to be starved out,—no appropriation. It was a short session, too; scant time for fighting. I went to Washington, and pleaded with the chairman of the House naval committee, Mr. Herbert; but while he was perfectly good-natured, and we have from then been on pleasant terms, whenever he saw me he set his teeth and compressed his lips. His argument was: Once establish an institution, and it grows; more and more every year. There must be economy, and nowhere is economy so effectually applied as to the beginnings. In vain did I try to divert his thoughts to the magnificent endings that would come from the paltry ten thousand the College asked. He stopped his ears, like Ulysses, and kept his eyes fixed on the necessity of strangling vipers in their cradle. In vain were my efforts seconded by General Joe Wheeler, also a representative from Alabama, and strongly sympathetic with military thought. No help could be expected from the Secretary, and we got no funds.

The fiscal year would end June 30, 1887. It was of no use to try saving from the current balance, for by law that must be turned in at the year's end. So we shrugged our shoulders and trusted to luck, which came to our assistance in a comical manner. For summer we were all right, or nearly so; but winter might freeze us out. Still, unless the Secretary saw fit to destroy the College by executive order, it had a right to be warm; so we sent in our requisition for heating the building. It went through the customary channels, was approved, and the coal in the cellars before the Department noticed that there was no appropriation against which to charge it. Upon reference to the Secretary, he decided that the coal had been ordered and supplied in good faith, and should be left and paid for. In fact, however, if the building was used it would have to be heated; the decision practically was to let the College retain the building. It was an excellent occasion to wipe us out by a stroke of the pen, but Mr. Whitney had not yet reached that point. The fuel, I think, was charged to the bureau to which the Training Station belonged, which would not tend to mollify its feelings.

Coal was our prime necessity, but it was not all. The hostile interest now began to cut us short in the various items which contribute to the daily bread of a government institution. We lived the year from hand to mouth. From the repairs put on the building a twelvemonth before there was left a lot of refuse scrap lying about. This we collected and sorted, selling what was available, on the principle of slush-money. Slush, the non-professional may be told, is the grease arising from the cooking of salt provisions. By old custom this was collected, barrelled, and sold for the benefit of the ship. The price remained in the first lieutenant's hands, to be expended for the vessel; usually going for beautifying. What we sold at the College we thus used; not for beautifying, which was far beyond us, but to keep things together. This proceeding was irregular, and for years I preserved with nervous care the memoranda of what became of the money, in case of being questioned; although I do not think the total went much beyond a hundred dollars. It is surprising how much a hundred dollars may be made to do. For our lectures the hydrographer again made for the College two very large and handsome maps.

The session of 1887 was longer and more complete than the year before; but specifically it increased our good report in the service and added to us hosts of friends. Many were now ready to speak in our favor, if asked; and some gave themselves a good deal of trouble to see this or that person of importance. This was a powerful reinforcement for the approaching struggle; but with the Secretary biassed against us, and resolute opposition from the chairman of the committee, the odds were heavy. Mr. Whitney showed me a frowning countenance, quite unlike his usual bonhomie; and yielded only a reluctant, almost surly, "I will not oppose you, but I do not authorize you to express any approval from me." With that we began a still hunt; not from policy, but because no other course was open, and by degrees we converted all the committee but three. This was quite an achievement in its way; for, as one of the members said to me, "It is rather hard to oppose the chairman in a matter of this kind. Still, I am satisfied it is a good thing, and I will vote for it." So we got our appropriation by a big majority. Mr. Herbert was very nice about his discomfiture. That a set of uninfluential naval officers should so unexpectedly have got the better of him, in his position, had a humorous side which he was ready to see; though it is possible we, on whose side the laugh was, enjoyed it more. He afterwards, when Secretary of the Navy, came to think much better of the College, which flourished under him.

I had soon to find that my mouth had more than one side on which to laugh. Confident that we were out of the woods, I proceeded to halloo; for in an address made at the opening of the session of 1888, alluding to the doubt long felt about the appropriation, I said, "That fear has now happily been removed." I reckoned without the Secretary, who issued an order, a bolt out of the blue, depriving the College not only of its building, but of its independent existence; transferring it to the care of the commander of the Torpedo Station, on another island in Narragansett Bay. This ended my official existence as president of the College, and I was sent off to Puget Sound; one of a commission to choose a site for a navy-yard there. I never knew, nor cared, just why Whitney took this course, but I afterwards had an amusing experience with him, showing how men forget; like my old commodore his moment of despondency about the outcome of the war. In later years he and I were members of a dining club in New York. I then had had my success and recognition. One evening I chanced to say to him, apropos of what I do not now recall, "It was at the time, you know, that you sent Sampson to the Naval Academy, and Goodrich to the Torpedo Station." "Yes," he rejoined, complacently; "and I sent you to the War College." It was literally true, doubtless; his act, though not his selection; but in view of the cold comfort and the petard with which he there favored me, for Whitney to fancy himself a patron to me, except on a Johnsonian definition of the word,[16] was as humorous a performance as I have known.

So I went to Puget Sound, a very pleasant as well as interesting experience; for, having a government tender at our disposal, we penetrated by daylight to every corner of that beautiful sheet of water, the intricate windings of which prepare a continual series of surprises; each scene like the last, yet different; the successive resemblances of a family wherein all the members are lovely, yet individual. Then was there not, suburban to the city of Seattle, Lake Washington, a great body of fresh water? Of this, and of its island, blooming with beautiful villas, a delightful summer resort in easy reach of the town by cars, we saw before our arrival alluring advertisements and pictures, which were, perhaps, a little premature and impressionist. How seductive to the imagination was the future battle-ship fleet resting in placid fresh water, bottoms unfouled and little rusted, awaiting peacefully the call to arms; upon which it should issue through the canal yet to be dug between sound and lake, ready for instant action! Great would have been the glory of Seattle, and corresponding the discomfiture of its rival Tacoma, which undeniably had no lake, and, moreover, lay under the stigma of having tried, in such default, to appropriate by misnomer another grand natural feature; giving its own name Tacoma to Mount Rainier, so called by Vancouver for an ancient British admiral. A sharp Seattleite said that a tombstone had thus been secured, to preserve the remembrance of Tacoma when the city itself should be no more. The local nomenclature affixed by Vancouver still remains in many cases. Puget, originally applied to one only of the many branches of the sound, was among his officers. Hood's Inlet was, doubtless, in honor of the great admiral, Lord Hood; while Restoration Point commemorates an anniversary of the restoration of Charles II. As regarded Lake Washington, our commission was a little nervous lest an injury to the canal might interfere at a critical moment with the fleet's freedom of movement, leaving it bottled up, and wired down. We selected, therefore, the site where the yard now stands, in a singularly well-protected inlet on the western side of the main arm, with an anchorage of very moderate depth and easy current for Puget Sound. There, if my recollection is right, it is nearly equidistant from the two cities. Our judgment was challenged and another commission sent out. This confirmed our choice, but very much less land was secured than we had advised.



XII

EXPERIENCES OF AUTHORSHIP

Before my return from Puget Sound a new administration had come in with President Harrison, and the War College was once more in favor. But its organization had been destroyed, and some time must elapse before it could get again on its legs. In the summer of 1889 a course was held at the Torpedo Station, where I lectured with others. The following winter an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars was made for a College building; the old one being confirmed to the training station, which continued, however, strongly to oppose any use of its grounds for the new venture. In this it was overruled, and in 1892 the College started afresh in what has since been its constant headquarters, two hundred yards from its original position.

In the mean time my first series of lectures had been published in book form, under the title The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. This was in May, 1890. That it filled a need was speedily evident by favorable reviews, which were much more explicit and hearty in Europe, and especially in Great Britain, than in the United States. The point of view apparently possessed a novelty, which produced upon readers something of the effect of a surprise. The work has since received the further indorsement of translation into French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish; I think into Italian also, but of this I am not certain. The same compliment has, I believe, been paid to its successor, which carried the treatment down to the fall of Napoleon. Notably, it may be said that my theme has brought me into pleasant correspondence with several Japanese officials and translators, than whom none, as far as known to me, have shown closer or more interested attention to the general subject; how fruitfully, has been demonstrated both by their preparation and their accomplishments in the recent war. As far as known to myself, more of my works have been done into Japanese than into any other one tongue.

In 1890 and 1891 there was no session of the College. During this period of suspended animation its activities were limited to my own preparations for continuing the historical course through the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, with a view to the resumption of teaching. I was kept on this duty; and I think no one else was busy in direct connection with the institution, though the former lecturers were for the most part available. It is evident how particularly fortunate such circumstances were to an author. For the two years that they lasted I had no cares beyond writing; was unvexed by either pecuniary anxieties or interference from my superiors. The College slumbered and I worked. My results, after one season's use as lectures, were published in two volumes, under the title The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire.

Of this work it may accurately be said that in order of composition it was begun with its final chapter. The accumulation and digestion of material had been spasmodic and desultory, for I had hesitated much whether to pursue the treatment after 1783. The instability of the College fortunes had irritated as well as harassed me. If the navy did not want what I was doing, why should I persist? Nothing having been given to the world, I had had no outside encouragement; and little from within the profession, save the cordial approval of a very few officers. However, during the two years of doubtful struggle I had read quite widely upon the general history of the particular period, as well as upon the effects of sea power in the Peloponnesian War; together with such details as I could collect from Livy and Polybius of naval occurrences while Hannibal was in Italy. My outlook was thus enlarged; not upon military matters only, but by an appreciation of the strength of Athens, broad based upon an extensive system of maritime commerce. This prepared me to see in the Continental System of Napoleon the direct outcome of Great Britain's maritime supremacy, and the ultimate cause of his own ruin. Thus, while gathering matter, a conception was forming, which became the dominant feature in my scheme by the time I began to write in earnest. Coincidently with these studies, and with my other occupations when at first president of the College, two introductory chapters had been written; one bridging the interval between 1783 and 1793, so as to hitch on to my first book, the other dealing with the state of the navies at the opening of the French Revolution.

There Mr. Whitney's action brought me up with a round turn. When I resumed, late in 1889, I extended my reading by Jomini's Wars of the French Republic, a work instructive from the political as well as military point of view; concurrently testing Howe's naval campaign of 1794 by the principles advanced by the military author, which commended themselves to my judgment. In connection with this study of naval strategy, I reconstructed independently Howe's three engagements of May 28th and 29th, and June 1st, from the details given by James, Troude, and Chevalier, analyzing and discussing the successive tactical measures of the opposing admirals; in the battle of June 1st going so far as to trace even the tracks of the fifty-odd individual ships throughout the action. This, the most complicated presentation I ever attempted, was a needless elaboration, though of absorbing interest to me when once begun. A comparison between it and the bare conventional diagram of Trafalgar in the same volumes, which has been criticised as not reproducing the facts, may serve to show how far multiplicity of minutiae conduces to clearness of perception. From the Trafalgar plan a reader, lay or professional, can grasp readily the underlying conceptions upon which the battle was fought, and the manner in which they were executed, as commonly received; but who ever has tried to comprehend the movements of the vessels on June 1st, as I elicited them? Assuming their correctness, it was a mere mental diversion, in result rather confusing than illuminative to a student; whereas ships arranged like beads on a string can give an impression fundamentally correct, and to be apprehended at a glance. So far from tending to lucidity, accumulation of detail in pursuit of minute accuracy rather obscures. Nelson himself indicated his intentions sufficiently by straight lines. One merit my June 1st plan may possibly possess; the perplexing optical effect may convey better than words the intricacy of a naval melee.

Coincidently with the study of military events, connoted by Howe's campaign and Jomini, I of course did a good deal of reading which here can be described only as miscellaneous; prominent amid which was Thiers's History of the Consulate and Empire, Napoleon's Correspondence and Commentaries, and the orations of Pitt and Fox. From Thiers, confirmed by contemporary memoirs and pamphlets and other incidental mention, I gained my conviction that the Continental System was the determinative factor in Napoleon's fortunes after Tilsit. Pitt's speeches, taken with his life, seemed to me conclusive as to his policy, despite the evil construction placed upon his acts by Frenchmen of his day, which Thiers has perpetuated. I saw clearly and conclusively, as I thought, apparent in his public words and private letters, a strong desire for peace, and a hand forced by a wilful spirit of aggression which momentarily had lost the balance of its reason. Making every allowance for the extravagances of the French rulers, unpractised in government and driven by a burning sense of mission to universal mankind, it was to me evident that their demands upon other nations, and notably upon Great Britain, were subversive of all public order and law, and of international security.

Pitt's proud resolution to withstand to the uttermost this tendency, coupled with his evident passionate clinging to peace as the basis of his life ambition, constituted to my apprehension a tragedy; of lofty personal aim and effort wrestling with, and slowly done to death by, opposing conditions too mighty for man. The dramatic intensity of the situation was increased by the absence of the external dramatic appeal characteristic of his father. It carried the force of emotion suppressed. The bitter inner disappointment is veiled under the reserve of his private life and the reticence of his public utterance, which give to his personality a certain remoteness from usual joys and sorrows; but, the veil once pierced by sympathy, the human side of the younger Pitt stands revealed as of one who, without complaint, bore no common burden, did no common work, and to whom fell no common share of the suffering which arises from disappointment and frustration, in ideals and achievement. The conflict of the two motives in the man's steadfast nature aroused in me an enthusiasm which I did not seek to check; for I believe enthusiasm no bad spirit in which to realize history to yourself or others. It tends to bias; but bias can be controlled. Enthusiasm has its place, not for action only, nor for speaking, but in writing and in appreciation; quite as critical analysis and judicial impartiality have theirs. To deny either is to err. The moment of exaltation gone, the dispassionate intellect may sit in judgment upon the expressions of thought and feeling which have been prompted by the stirring of the mind; but without this there lacks one element of true presentation. The height of full recognition for a great event, or a great personality, has not been reached. The swelling of the breast under strong emotion uplifts understanding. Under such influence a writer is to the extent of his faculties on the level of his theme. As for biography, I would no more attempt to write that of a man for whom I felt no warm admiration, than I would maintain friendship with one for whom I had no affection.

Doubtless there also was in Pitt's manner of speech, in the cast of his sentences,—the style that is the man himself,—something which appealed especially to me. Often, when reading in the Public Library of New York a passage of unusual eloquence, I would be strongly moved to rise on the spot and give three cheers; and I heartily subscribed to a Latin motto on the title-page of the edition I was using: If you could but have heard himself. But it was more than that. The story increasingly impressed itself upon me. I saw him conscious of great capacities for the administration of peace, an inner conviction of far less ability for war; with a vision of Great Britain happy and prosperous beyond all past experience under his enlightened guidance, of which already the plans had been revealed and proof been given, and over against this the palpable reality of a current too powerful to be resisted, sweeping her into a conflict, the end of which, amid such unprecedented conditions, could not be foreseen. Also, despite all his deficiencies for a war ministry, as I read and studied the general features of the situation with which he had to deal, I became convinced that the broad lines of his policy coincided with the military necessities of the case, to an extent that he himself very possibly did not realize. For as the Directory outlined Napoleon's Continental System, so Pitt, unknowingly perhaps, pursued the methods, as he definitely predicted the means—exhaustion—by which his successors brought to a stop the mischievous energies of France under the great emperor.

Thus, before I began to write, my leading ideas for the historical treatment of the influence of sea power during the period 1793-1814 rested upon an approval of the main features of Pitt's war policy, and sympathy with his personal position; upon a clear conviction of the weight of the Continental System as a factor in the general situation, and of its being a direct consequence from British maritime supremacy; and upon a sufficiently comprehensive acquaintance with the operations of the land warfare up to the Peace of Amiens. Having as yet written only the two introductory chapters, and Howe's campaign being strictly episodical, the work as an organic whole was still before me when the summer of 1890 arrived. It was then thought probable that the College would at once resume, and in order to be at hand I settled my family in Newport, there addressing myself to my new lectures. Considering the mass of detail through which my hearers must be carried, I thought advisable to begin with an outline statement of the general political and military conditions, and of their sequences; a rudimentary figure, a skeleton, the nakedness of which should render easy to understand the mutual bearings of the several parts, and their articulations. So most surely could the relation of sea power to the other members be seen, and its influence upon them and upon the ultimate issue be appreciated. Before I began, I remember explaining to a brother officer my conception of the Continental System as the culmination of the maritime struggle, which in a narrowly military sense had ended with Trafalgar. The light thus cast would illuminate afterwards each of the several sections of the history, treated circumstantially in order of time. In short, I here applied to the whole the method of my diagram for Trafalgar, and not of that for June 1st. The result was the chapter last in the work, as it now stands, but the first to be composed.

A few months before book publication this chapter appeared in the Quarterly Review, under the title "Pitt's War Policy," chosen by me to express my recognition that the grand policy was his; that in it he was real as well as titular premier; and that in my judgment, despite the numerous errors of detail which demonstrated his limited military understanding, the economical comprehension of the statesman had developed a political strategy which vindicated his greatness in war as in peace. The article ended, as the chapter then did, with the well-known quotation, particularly apt to my appreciation, "The Pilot had weathered the storm." The few subsequent pages were added later. By an odd coincidence, just as I had offered the paper to the Quarterly, one under the same title, "by a Foxite," came out in another magazine. Somewhat discomposed, I hurried to look this up; but found, as from the nom de plume might be presumed, that it did not take my line of argument, but rather, as I recall, that of Pitt's opponents, which Macaulay has developed with his accustomed brilliancy, although to my mind with profound misconception and superficial criticism. Fox's speeches had made upon me the impression of the mere objector. Indeed, I felt this so strongly that I had written of him as "the great, but factious, leader of the opposition." In proofreading I struck out "factious;" as needless, and as a generalization on insufficient premises.

It was not till the following December—1890—that I began the two chapters next in order of composition, on "The Warfare against Commerce." These occupied me late into the winter, covering as they did the entire period 1793-1814, and embracing a great deal of detail. Taken together, these three chapters, final but first written, contain the main argument of the book. The naval occurrences, brilliant and interesting as they were, are logically but the prelude to the death grapple. Pitt's policy stood justified, because naval supremacy, established by war, secured control of the seas and of maritime commerce, and so exhausted Napoleon. Not till this demonstration had been accomplished to my own satisfaction did I take up the narrative and discussion of warfare, land and sea. Thus the prelude followed the play. My memory retains associations which enable me definitely to fix the progress of the work. Thus the chapter on "The Brest Blockade," from its characteristics, long continuance, and incidents, one of the most interesting of the purely naval operations, was composed in the summer of 1891, at Richfield; while the campaign and battle of Trafalgar, the last done of all, passed through my hands in April, 1892, in Richmond, Virginia, where I then was on court-martial duty.

This second book was written under much more encouraging circumstances than its predecessor, and with much greater deliberation. The first occupied me little over one year; the second, though covering only one-fifth the time, was in hand three. There were long interruptions, it is true; the Puget Sound business, and the writing of a short Life of Farragut. But the chief cause of delay was a much more extensive preparation. This was owing largely to the crowded activities of the brief twenty years treated, and still more to wider outlook. I attempted, indeed, nothing that could be called original research. I still relied wholly upon printed matter, but in that I wandered far. The privilege was accorded me of free access to the alcoves of what was then the Astor Library, now, while keeping its name, incorporated with the New York Public Library; and I rummaged its well-stocked shelves, following up every clue, especially memoirs, pamphlets, and magazines, contemporary with my period. From the estimate I had formed of the effect of commerce upon the outcome of the hostilities, it was necessary to digest the statistics of the times, much of which existed in tabulated form; and, for commercial policy, the State Papers, and debates in Parliament, as well as in the French National Convention. I now had not only interest in my task, but pride; for the favorable criticism upon the first sea-power book not only had surprised me, but had increased my ambition and my self-confidence. It was a distinct help that there was no expectation of pecuniary advantage; no publisher or magazine editor pressing for "copy," on which dollars depended. I now often recall with envy the happiness of those days, when the work was its own reward, and quite sufficient, too, almost as good as a baby; when there were no secondary considerations, however important, to dispute for the first place. I have never knowingly let work leave my hands in shape less good than the best I can turn out; but I have often felt the temptation to do so, and wished—almost, not quite—that there was no money in it. I recast Dr. Johnson's saying: "None but a blockhead would write unless he needed money." None but a blockhead would write for money, unless he had to.

Though not embarrassed by publishers, I found a more formidable enemy on my tracks in 1892. There had been a change in the Bureau of Navigation, and the new chief, under whom the College was, thought my help to it less necessary than my going to sea. To an advocate of allowing me time, he replied, summarily, "It is not the business of a naval officer to write books." As an aphorism the remark is doubtless unassailable; but, with a policy thus defined, my position, again to quote Boatswain Chucks, became "precarious and not at all permanent." That my turn for sea service had come was indisputable. I could pretend to no grievance, but I did want first to finish that book. Yet I have recalled with happiness that I was enabled to work steadfastly on, my pulse beating no quicker for fear I should be interrupted and my task left unfinished. I remember a Boston publisher telling me of the anxiety felt by one of his distinguished clients, lest death should overtake him before that which he had planned was completed. The feeling is common to man, and one is touched by the apparent tragedy when men of promise and achievement are so removed, their aims unaccomplished, as were recently Professor Rawson Gardiner and Sir William Hunter; but it was given me early to realize that there is no such thing as being cut off unbetimes. If I were called at the end of a day's stint, or the pen fell from my hand in the midst of it, that which was appointed me was done; if well done, what mattered the rest? This quietness came to me through a chain of thought. I had been experiencing, as many others have, the weariness of a long-winded job, the end of which seemed to recede with each day's progress; and there came to my mind Long-fellow's "Village Blacksmith:"

"Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begin, Each evening sees it close."

Would it were so with me! And a voice replied, "Is it not so with you? with all?" Since then I have understood; though the flesh is often weak, and even the calm of the study cannot always exclude the contagious fever of our American pace. In the particular juncture, the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Tracy, took my view of relative importances, and time was secured me. The manuscript was complete by the late spring of 1892, and the book published in December, having meantime been used for lectures in the first session of the College in its new building; a renewal of life which has since proved continuous.

During this interval occurred another presidential campaign. Mr. Harrison was defeated and Mr. Cleveland elected. I was now ready to go to sea, but by this time had decided that authorship had for me greater attractions than following up my profession, and promised a fuller and more successful old age. I would have retired immediately, had I then fulfilled the necessary forty years' service; but of these I still lacked four. My purpose was to take up at once the War of 1812, while the history of the preceding events was fresh in my mind; and in this view I asked to be excused from sea duty, undertaking that I would retire when my forty years were complete. The request was probably inadmissible, for I could have given no guarantees; and the precedent might have been bad. At any rate, it was not granted, luckily for me; for by a combination of unforeseen circumstances the ship to which I was ordered, the Chicago, was sent to Europe as flag-ship of that station, and on her visit to England, in 1894, occasion was taken by naval officers and others to express in public manner their recognition of the value they thought my work had been to the appreciation of naval questions there. This brought my name forward in a way that could not but be flattering, and affected favorably the sale of the books; the previous readers of which had seemingly been few, though from among those few I had received pleasant compliments. Upon this followed the conferring upon me honorary degrees by the two universities; D.C.L. by Oxford, and LL.D. by Cambridge. After my return, in 1895, LL.D. was extended also by Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, in the order named, and by McGill in Montreal.

Another very pleasing and interesting experience while in London was dining with the Royal Navy Club. This is an ancient institution, dating back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Its list of members carries many celebrated names, among others Nelson. It has no club-house, and exists as an organization only; meeting for dinners on or near the dates of some half-dozen famous naval victories, the anniversaries of which it thus commemorates yearly. There is by rule one guest of the evening, and one only, who is titularly the guest of the presiding officer; but on this occasion an exception was made for our admiral and myself. Unfortunately, he, who was much the better after-dinner speaker, was ill and could not attend. The rule thus remained intact, and I have understood that this was the first time in the history of the club that the guest had been a foreigner.

The Chicago had left England and was lying at Antwerp when the time for conferring degrees arrived. My attendance in person was requisite, but only a week could be spared from the ship for the purpose. This made it impossible for me to be present in both cases at the high ceremonial, where the honors are bestowed upon the full group of recipients. Oxford had been first to tender me her distinction, and I accordingly arranged my journey with a view to her celebration; two days before which I went down to Cambridge, and was there received and enrolled at a private audience, before the accustomed officials and some few visitors from outside. What the circumstances lacked in the pomp of numbers and observance, and in the consequent stimulus to interest which a very novel experience arouses, was compensated to me by the few hours of easy social intercourse with a few eminent persons, whom I had the pleasure of then meeting very informally.

The great occasion at Oxford presents a curious combination of impressiveness and horse-play, such as is associated with the Abbot of Misrule, in the stories of the Middle Ages. It is this smack and suggestion of antiquity, of unnumbered such occasions in the misty past, when the student was half-scholar and half-ruffian, which make the permitted license of to-day not only tolerable, but in a sense even venerable. The good-humor and general acceptance on both sides, by chaffers and chaffed, testified to recognized conditions; and there is about a hoary institution a saving grace which cannot be transferred to parvenus. Practised in a modern Cis-Atlantic seat of learning, as I have seen it done, without the historical background, the same disregard of normal decorum becomes undraped rowdyism—boxing without gloves. The scene and its concurrences at Oxford have been witnessed by too many, and too often described, for me to attempt them. I shall narrate only my particular experiences. I had been desired to appear in full uniform—epaulettes, cocked hat, sword, and what is suggestively called "brass-bound" coat; swallow-tailed, with a high collar stiffened with lining and gold lace, set off by trousers with a like broad stripe of lace, not inaptly characterized by some humorist as "railroad" trousers. The theory of these last, I believe, is that so much decoration on hat and collar, if not balanced by an equivalent amount below, is top-heavy in visual effect, if not on personal stability. Whatever the reason, it is all there, and I had it all at Oxford; all on my head and back, I mean, except the epaulettes. For to my concern I found that over all this paraphernalia I must also wear the red silk gown of a D.C.L. It became evident, immediately upon trial, that the silk and the epaulettes were agreeing like the Kilkenny cats, so it was conceded that these naval ornaments should be dispensed with; the more readily as they could not have been seen. In the blend, and for the occasion, my legal laurels prevailed over my professional exterior.

In the matter of dress my life certainly culminated when I walked up—or down—High Street in Oxford with cocked hat, red silk gown, and sword, the railroad trousers modestly peeping beneath. It must be admitted that the townsmen either had more than French politeness, or else were used to incongruities. I did not see one crack a smile; whether any turned to look or not, I did not turn to see. My hospitable escort and myself joined the other expectants before the Sheldonian Theatre, where the ceremonies are held. The audience, of both sexes, visitors and students, had already crammed the benches and galleries of the great circular interior when we marched to our seats, in single file, down a narrow aisle. The fun, doubtless, had been going on already some time; but for us it was non-existent till we entered, when the hose was turned full upon us and our several peculiarities. I am bound to say that to encourage us we got quite as many cheers as chaff, and the personalities which flew about like grape-shot were pretty much hit or miss. I noticed that some one from aloft called out, "Why don't you have your hair cut?" which I afterwards understood was a delicate allusion to my somewhat unparalleled baldness; but it happened that two behind me in the procession was a very distinguished Russian scientist, like myself a D.C.L. in ovo, whose long locks fell over his collar, and I innocently supposed that so pertinent a remark was addressed to him on an occasion when impertinence was lord of the ascendant. Thus the shaft passed me harmless, or fell back blunted from my triple armor of dulness.

Although in itself in most ways enjoyable, the cruise of the Chicago while it lasted necessarily suspended authorship. I heard intimations of the common opinion that the leisure of a naval officer's life would afford abundant opportunity. Even I myself for a moment imagined that time in some measure might be found for accumulating material, for which purpose I took along several books; but it was in vain. Neither a ship nor a book is patient of a rival, and I soon ceased the effort to serve both. Night work was tried, contrary to my habit; but after a few weeks I had to recognize that the evening's exertion had dulled my head for the next morning's duties.

My orders not only interrupted writing, but changed its direction for a long while. I had foreseen that the War of 1812, as a whole, must be flat in interest as well as laborious in execution; and, upon the provocation of other duty, I readily turned from it in distaste. Nine years elapsed before I took it up; and then rather under the compulsion of completing my Sea Power series, as first designed, than from any inclination to the theme. It occupied three years—usefully, I hope—and was published in 1905. Regarded as history, it is by far the most thorough work I have done. I went largely to original documents in Washington, Ottawa, and London, and I believe I have contributed to the particular period something new in both material and interpretation. But, whatever value the book may possess to one already drawn to the subject, it is impossible to infuse charm where from the facts of the case it does not exist. As a Chinese portrait-painter is said to have remonstrated with a discontented patron, "How can pretty face make, when pretty face no have got?"

Thus my orders to the Chicago led to dropping 1812, and to this my Life of Nelson was directly due. The project had already occurred to me, for the conspicuous elements of human as well as professional interest could not well escape one who had just been following him closely in his military career. Sea Power in the French Revolution having been published less than six months before, the framework of external events, into which his actions must be fitted, was fresh in my recollection, as was also the analysis of his campaigns and battles, available at once for fuller treatment, more directly biographical. After consultation with my publishers I decided to undertake the work, and with reference to it chiefly I provided myself reading-matter. I have already said that the experiment of writing on board did not succeed. I composed part of the first chapter and then stopped; but the purpose remained, and was resumed very soon after leaving the Chicago, in May, 1895.

For the writing of biography I had formed a theory of my own, a guiding principle, closely akin to the part which sea power had played in my treatment of history. This leading idea was not intended to exclude other points of view or manners of presentation, but was to subordinate them somewhat peremptorily. As defined to myself, my plan was to realize personality by living with the man, in as close familiarity as was consistent with the fact of his being dead. This was to be done first, for myself, as the necessary prelude to transmission to my readers. When there remains a huge mass of correspondence, by one as frank in utterance and copious in self-revelation as was Nelson, the opportunity to get on terms of such intimacy is unique, one-sided though the communication is. Besides, companions and subordinates have left abundant records of their association with him, which constitute, as it were, the other side of conversation; relieving the monologue of his own letters. The first thing in order is to know the living man; and it seemed to me that, with such materials, this could be accomplished most fully by steeping one's self in them, creating an environment closely analogous to the intercourse of daily life. I believed that passive surrender to these impressions, rather than conscious labored effort, would gradually produce the perceptions of immediate contact, to the utmost that the nature of the case admitted. Johnson doubtless was right in naming personal acquaintance as chief among the qualifications of a biographer; failing that, one must seek the best substitute. By either method the conception of character and temperament is formed; its reproduction to readers is a matter of power of expression, and of capacity to introduce aptly, here and there, the minute touches by which an artist secures likeness and heightens effect.

Whatever the worth of this theory, it was due in large measure to revulsion from a form of biography, to me always displeasing and essentially crude, which gives a narrative of external life-events, disjointed continually by letters. Profuse recourse to letters simply turns over to the reader the task which the biographer has undertaken to do for him. Perhaps the biographer cannot do it. Then he had better not undertake the job. A collection of letters is one thing, a biography another; and they do not mix well when a career abounds in incident. Letters are material for biography, as original documents are material for history; but as documents are not history, so letters are not biography. The historian and biographer by publishing virtually contract to present their readers with a digested, reasoned whole; the best expression, full yet balanced, that they can give of the truth concerning a period, or a man. It is a labor of time and patience, and should be also of love; one which the reader is to be spared, on the principle that a thousand men should not have to do, each for himself, the work the one writer professes. It is no fair treatment to tumble at their feet a basketful of papers, and virtually say, "There! find out the man for yourself."

The interest of lives, of course, varies, and with it the opportunity of the biographer. I do not mean in degree, which is trite to remark, but in kind, which is less recognized. There are men the value of whose memory to their race lies in their thought and words, whose career is uneventful. Yet even with them the impression of personality is not as vividly produced by masses of correspondence as it may be by the petty occurrences of daily life, which for them are the analogues of the stirring incidents that mark the course of the man of public action, statesman or warrior. The reason is plain; the character of few rises to the height of their words, written or spoken. These show their wisdom, or power, and are uplifting; but their shortcomings, too, have a virtue. We fight the better for appreciating that victors have known defeat. The supreme gift of biography to mankind is personality; not what the man thought or did, but what he was. Herein is inspiration and reproof; motive force, inspiring or deterrent. If nothing better, mere recognition, or exultation in an excellence to which we do not attain, has a saving grace of its own.