Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Union League:—It was my good fortune, some eighteen months ago, to be in the city of Seattle, when the "Monterey" was lying in the harbor under the command of Captain Clark. At the time of my visit clear skies, placid waters and silent guns gave little indication of the awful responsibility that was soon to be imposed upon the gallant commander. My boys, having met him, were, like myself, intensely interested in the outcome of his voyage; and I can say to him that the pulsations of the engines which drove the Oregon through fourteen thousand miles of tropic seas were accompanied by the sympathetic beatings of hearts which had learned to love and respect this great captain as he richly deserved.

The American Navy! The most concise tribute that I ever heard paid to the sailors of the United States was contained in the answer of a man from Indiana, who was an applicant for office under General Grant, just after the Civil Service rules had gone into operation. The applicant was apprehensive as to his ability to respond to the questions, but one of his answers captured the board of examiners as well as the president, and he secured the place. The question was, "How many sailors did Great Britain send here, during the war of the Revolution, for the purpose of subduing us?" and the answer was, "More by a——sight than ever got back."

When Louis XIV, in order to check what he perceived to be the growing supremacy of England upon the seas, determined to establish a navy, he sent for his minister Colbert, and said to him, "I wish a navy—how can I create it!" Colbert replied, "Make as many galley slaves as you can." Thereupon every Huguenot who refused to doff his bonnet on the street as the king passed by, every boy of seventeen who could give no account of himself, every vagrant without an occupation, was seized, convicted, and sent to the galleys. Could a navy of heroes be made of galley slaves! The history of the Anglo-Saxon race says "No."

On the twenty-second day of December, 1775, the navy of the United States was born on the waters of our Delaware. On that day Esek Hopkins, of Rhode Island, was placed in command of a little fleet of eight vessels—two of them ships, two of them brigs, the others very much smaller. The English officers sneered in derision at "the fleet of whaleboats." The rattlesnake flag—a yellow flag with a pine tree in the centre and a rattlesnake coiled beneath its branches, with the words "Don't tread on me"—was run to the masthead of the Providence, being hauled there by the hands of the first lieutenant, John Paul Jones. That little fleet of eight vessels, mounting only 114 guns, was sent forth to confront a naval power of 112 battleships with 3,714 guns—not a single gun of ours throwing a ball heavier than nine pounds, while five hundred of the English guns threw a weight of metal of double that amount. Wasn't it an audacious thing? Why, it seems to me one of the marvels of human history when I reflect upon what was attempted by the Americans of 1776.

Look at the situation. Thirteen different colonies strung along a narrow strip of coast; three thousand miles of rolling ocean on the one side and three thousand miles of impenetrable wilderness on the other; colonies with infinite diversity of interests—diverse in blood, diverse in conditions of society, diverse in ambition, diverse in pursuits—the English Puritan on the rock of Plymouth, the Knickerbocker Dutch on the shores of the Hudson, the Jersey Quaker on the other side of the Delaware, the Swede extending from here to Wilmington, Maryland bisected by our great bay of the Chesapeake, Virginia cut in half by the same water way, North Carolina and South Carolina lying south of impenetrable swamps as inaccessible to communication as a range of mountains, and farther south the sparsely-settled colony of Georgia. Huguenot, Cavalier, Catholic, Quaker, Dutchman, Puritan, Mennonite, Moravian, and Church of England men; and yet, under the hammer stroke of British oppression, thirteen colonies were welded into one thunderbolt, which was launched at the throne of George III.

That little navy under Hopkins—where were those sailors bred? Read Burke's speech on the conciliation of America. They sprang from the loins of hardy fishermen amidst tumbling fields of ice on the banks of Newfoundland, from those who had speared whales in the tepid waters of Brazil, or who had pursued their gigantic game into the Arctic zone or beneath the light of the Southern Cross. That fleet of eight ships sailed from the Delaware on the twenty-second of December, 1775, and proceeded to the island of New Providence, among the Bahamas. Our colonies and our armies were without arms, without powder, without munitions of war. The very first exploit of the fleet was the capture, on the nineteenth of March, 1776, of 150 cannon, 130 barrels of powder and eight warships, which were carried in triumph into Long Island Sound. But what of American heroism when the soldiers of Howe, of Clinton, of Carleton, and of Gage came here to fight the farmers of Pennsylvania, of Connecticut and Virginia, and the gay cavaliers who loved adventure? The British soldiers had conquered India under Sir Robert Clive and Sir Eyre Coote; they had been the heroes of Plassey and Pondicherry; men who had subjected to British dominion a country almost as extensive as our own fair republic and containing one hundred and ninety millions of souls. Here they found themselves faced by men of their own blood, men in whose breasts burned the spirit and the love of that liberty which was to encircle the heavens. On the glory-crowned heights of Bunker Hill the patriots gazed at the rafters of their own burning dwellings in the town of Charlestown, and heard the cannon shots hurled from British ships against the base of the hill. Three times did scarlet regiments ascend that hill only to be driven back; the voice of that idiot boy, Job Pray, ringing out above the din of battle, "Let them come on to Breed's—the people will teach them the law."

When the evacuation by the British of the metropolis of New England was effected by the troops under the command of a Virginia soldier, General Washington, then for the first time did sectionalism and partisanship and divisions on narrow lines vanish; the patriots who had fought at Bunker Hill were now no longer to be known as the troops of Massachusetts, of Connecticut, or of Rhode Island, but henceforth it was the Continental Army. On the very day when the British were driven out of Boston, John Paul Jones, with that historic rattlesnake flag, and, floating above it, not the Stars and Stripes, but the Stripes with the Union Jack, entered the waters of Great Britain; and then it was seen that an American captain with an American ship and American sailors had the pluck to push out into foreign seas and to beard the British lion in his den. The same channel which had witnessed the victories of De Ruyter and Von Tromp, which was the scene of Blake's victory over the Dutch, and where the father of our great William Penn won his laurels as an admiral, was now the scene of the exploits of an American captain fighting beneath an American flag for American rights inherited from old mother England, who, in a moment of forgetfulness, had sought to deprive her offspring of liberty. I know of no more thrilling incident in revolutionary naval annals than the fight between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard, when Paul Jones, on the burning deck of a sinking ship, lashed his yard arms to those of the enemy and fought hand to hand, man to man, until the British colors struck, and then, under the very cliffs of Old England, were run up for the first time the Stars and Stripes—with a field of blue into which the skillful fingers of Betsy Ross, of Philadelphia, had woven inextinguishable stars; the red stripes typifying the glory, the valor, and the self-sacrifice of the men who died that liberty might live; and the white, emblematic of purity, fitly representing those principles to preserve which these men had sanctified themselves by an immortal self-dedication. And there, too, in the Continental Navy was Richard Dale, the young "Middy," who fought beside Paul Jones; and Joshua Barney; and John Barry; and Nicholas Biddle of Philadelphia, who later, in the gallant little Randolph, in order to help a convoyed fleet of American merchantmen to escape, boldly attacked the battleship Yarmouth; and when it was found that he was doomed to defeat, blew up his vessel, perishing with all his crew, rather than strike the colors of the newly-born republic.

All honor to the navy of the United States! I never can read of its exploits—peaceful citizen as I am—without my blood bubbling with a joyous sense of exultation at the thought that the flag which has swept the seas, carrying liberty behind it, is the flag which is destined to sweep the seas again and carry liberty, civilization, and all the blessings of free government into benighted islands far, far from hence.

Why, gentlemen, the story of the exploits of our little fleets reads like a romance. At the end of the Revolutionary War eight hundred British ships, fifteen of them battleships, had surrendered to the prowess of the American navy, together with twelve thousand five hundred prisoners captured by less than three thousand men; and in that war our country had produced the boldest admirals that, up to that time, civilization had known, and the greatest fighting naval heroes that the world had seen.

Then came the War of 1812, to establish sailors' rights upon the high seas, when the American navy again proved victor despite overwhelming odds. I have in my possession a list of the British and American vessels at the outbreak of that war; and if I were to represent them by something tangible in order to indicate the proportions of each, I would say, taking this box lid for example (illustrating with the stem of a rose upon the cover of a discarded flower box), that if you were to draw a line across here, near the top, you would have sufficient space in the narrow strip above the dividing line to write the names of all the American ships, while the entire remaining space would not be more than sufficient for the English fleet, which was more than thirty times the size of its antagonist. The ships which under Nelson had fought at the Nile and had won imperishable glory at Trafalgar, coming into our waters, struck their flags time and again. The glorious old "Ironsides" (the Constitution) captured the Guerriere, the Java, the Cyane, and Levant. The United States took the Macedonian; the Wasp destroyed the Frolic, while on the lakes we point with pride to the victories of Perry and MacDonough. When battle after battle had been fought it was found that, of eighteen fixed engagements, seventeen were victories for the Stars and Stripes. And this over the greatest maritime war power of the world!

Philadelphia is honorably associated with the glories of our navy. Our early battleships, though not all built here, were planned and constructed by Joshua Humphreys, a Philadelphian, the predecessor of our great shipbuilder of to-day, Charles H. Cramp.

Need I speak of the navy from 1861 to 1865, or tell of the exploits of those gallant fleets which clove a pathway down the valley of the Ohio, of the Tennessee, and of the Mississippi, in order that liberty might ride unvexed from the lakes to the gulf? Need I dwell upon the part taken by the guest of this evening, who was an officer who fought under Farragut?

In our recent war with Spain there were some who, in doubting moments, yielded to that atrabilious disposition which has been so well described by Mr. Tomkins; who thought that our ships were not strong enough to hazard an encounter with the fleets of Spain. But meanwhile there was doubling "around the Horn" a battleship, with a captain and a crew whose marvelous voyage was attracting the eyes of the world. Night after night we took up the map, traced his course from port to port, and our hearts beat high, our lips were firmly compressed, the color faded from our cheeks with excitement, but our eyes blazed with exultant anticipation as nearer and nearer to Pernambuco did he come. We all now feel, judging of the possibilities by actual achievement, that had Captain Clark encountered the enemy's ships, he could and would have successfully fought and defeated the entire Spanish fleet. He carried his ship ready for instant actions, every man at his post. God bless that crew! God bless those stokers, far down below those decks, confident that the captain who commanded them was on the bridge, and that he would never flinch nor fail in the hour of trial! I have often tried to draw a mental picture of what the scene must have been when the Oregon steamed in to join the fleet before Santiago; when the white jackets on the yard-arms tossed their caps in the air, and southern tars gave back to Yankee cheers a lusty welcome to the man who for so long, against all odds, with no encouraging advices, with unknown terrors all about him, had never flinched from duty, and who, when the last summons came, responded in the words of Colonel Newcomb, Adsum—"I am here."

On the morning of the third of July, 1898, there stood the frowning Morro Castle, the prison of the glorious Hobson; on the other side the fortress of Estrella; the narrow channel blocked by the wreck of the Merrimac; the Brooklyn, the Oregon, the Texas, the Indiana, the Iowa and the Massachusetts all watching that orifice. Then black smoke rolled from the tunnels of the enemy's ships, indicating that the tiger had roused him from his lair and was making a rush for the open sea. Up went the signal on the flagstaff of the Brooklyn, "Forward—the enemy is approaching." Then engines moved; then guns thundered their volleys; then sky and sea became black with the smoke of battle; and swiftly steamed the Oregon in pursuit of the Cristobal Colon. Beneath well-directed shots the monster reeled, like a wounded athlete, to the beach; and then from the flagstaff of the New York were displayed those signals now on these walls before your eyes—"1-7-3; cornet; 2m-9m-7m"—which, translated, meant—and we of the League to-night repeat the words—"Well done, Oregon."

Captain Clark, the city of Philadelphia has always contributed her share to the building of the navy and to a fitting recognition of the heroes who have commanded our battleships. In the old churchyard of St. Mary's, on Fourth Street, sleep the bones of John Barry; and in the older churchyard of St. Peter's stands the monument to Decatur. We have with us also the ashes of Stewart, who commanded "Old Ironsides" when she captured the Cyane and the Levant; and we have those of Bainbridge, who captured the Java.

In reading of the exploits of the master spirits of the past, I have sometimes wondered whether we had men of to-day who were their equals. My answer is this: I say to soldiers and sailors, whether of our Civil War or of the late war with Spain, you are worthy of your sires, you have caught the inspiration of their glowing deeds, you have taken up the burden which they threw upon your shoulders, and though in time to come you may sleep in unmarked graves, the memory of your deeds will live; and, like your sires, you have become immortal.

To fight for liberty is indeed a privilege. "Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, thou art a bitter draught; and, though thousands in all ages have been made to drink thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. 'Tis thou, O Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so till nature herself shall change. No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, nor chemic power turn thy scepter into iron. With thee to smile upon him, as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than the monarch from whose courts thou art exiled." So wrote Laurence Sterne.

And then Rufus Choate: "To form and uphold a state, it is not enough that our judgments should believe it to be useful; the better part of our affections should feel it to be lovely. It is not enough that our arithmetic should compute its value and find it high; our hearts should hold it priceless—above all things rich and rare—dearer than health and beauty, brighter than all the order of the stars." In contemplating those mysterious dispensations of Providence by which the light which broke upon this continent two hundred years ago is now penetrating and illuminating the darkest corners of the earth, it will be a supreme satisfaction for us to know that our children and our children's children will have set for their imitation and encouragement the example of the heroism, the manliness, the courage, the patriotism and the modesty of the captains of to-day.