When in the year 1854, all Christendom was thrilled by the news of the opening of Japan to intercourse with the world, the name of Commodore Matthew Perry was on the lips of nations. In Europe it was acknowledged that the triumph had been achieved by no ordinary naval officer. Consummate mastery of details combined with marked diplomatic talents stamped Matthew Calbraith Perry as a man whose previous history was worth knowing. That history we propose to outline. The life of our subject is interesting for the following among many excellent reasons:— 1. While yet a lad, he was active as a naval officer in the war of 1812. 2. He chose the location of the first free black settlement in Liberia. 3. He was, to the end of his life, one of the leading educators of the United States Navy. 4. He was the father of our steam...
Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. Passages in bold were indicated by =equal signs=. Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. Throughout the document, the œ ligature was replaced with "oe". The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted. On page 5, a period was added after "little or no benefit." On page 9, "vistage" was replaced with "vestige". On page 35, the images overlapped in a manner so that part the lower-left corner of the first image was not shown. The missing parts was reconstructed in the HTML version. On page 42, "Henry Wager Halleck. who" was replaced with "Henry Wager Halleck, who". On page 46, "strategem" was replaced with "stratagem". On page 60, "reconnoisance" was replaced with "reconnaissance". On...
If any one should be interested enough to inquire as to the reason for my becoming a sky spy, an aërial observer, a deuce, or whatever one chooses to call it, I should certainly speak the truth and affirm that it was not the result of calm, cool and deliberate thought. I have always had a holy horror of airplanes and to this day I cannot say that I exactly enjoy riding in them. My sole reason for flying now is that I am still in the Air Service and there is not an excuse in the world for a young man being an air officer if he does not spend a part of his time in that element. Every boy in his own heart wants to be a soldier whether his mother raises him that way or not: as a boy and as a man I wanted to be...
"Elenchus Motuum Nuperorum." Heath's "Flagellum; or, the Life and Death of Oliver Cromwell." Banks' "Life of Cromwell." "Review of the Political Life of Cromwell." "A Modest Vindication of Oliver Cromwell." "The Machivilian Cromwellist." Kimber's "Life of Cromwell." "The World Mistaken in Oliver Cromwell"(1668). "A Letter of Comfort to Richard Cromwell." "Letters from Fairfax to Cromwell." "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches." "A Collection of Several Passages concerning Cromwell in his Sickness." "The Protector's Declaration against the Royal Family of the Stuarts." "Memoirs of Cromwell and his Children, supposed to be written by himself." "Narrative of the Proceedings of the English Army in Scotland." "An Account of the Last Houres of the late renowned Oliver, Lord Protector" (1659). "Sedition Scourged." Heath's "Chronicles of the late Intestine War." Welwood's "Memoirs of Transactions in England." "Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, M.P., in the year 1640." Forster's "Statesmen of the Commonwealth." "Killing No Murther." Thurloe's "State Papers."...
Cause of the Rebellion—Measures taken by the leaders to deceive the masses—James Buchanan—Lincoln's journey to Washington, and entering upon his duties—Call for 75,000 Volunteers—Organization of 9th Ill.—Roster of officers—Six Regiments organized in Illinois—Nature of "Three months' service"—Kentucky neutrality—Scouting—Incidents—When mustered out—Reorganization. Every lover of his country will remember, with peculiar emotions, the events of the Winter and Spring of 1861. On the election of Abraham Lincoln to the position of President of the United States, in the autumn of 1860, the Southern portion of our once peaceful and happy country were indignant at the result. They had so long been accustomed to have everything their own way, so far as President-making was concerned, that they could not endure the thought of being superceded in their favorite work. For years they had elected Presidents who were either Southern men, or Northern men whose views agreed with their own on the great question...
The Pageant of the Road.—Canterbury Pilgrims.—Henry II. barefoot.—Choosing the Road.—Wind on the Hill.—Wine in the Valley.— Pilgrim's Progress. —Shalford Fair.—A doubtful Mile.—Trespassers will be Prosecuted.—With Chaucer from the Tabard. East and west through the county of Surrey runs the chalk ridge of the North Downs, the great highway of Southern England from the Straits of Dover to Salisbury Plain. Of all English roads, it has carried the longest pageant. It saw the beginnings of English history; for four centuries it was one of the best known highways in Christendom: the vision from its windy heights is one of the widest and most gracious of all visions of woods and fields and hills. By the trackway they made upon the ridge came the worshippers to Stonehenge; Phœnician traders brought bronze to barter for British tin, and the tin was carried in ingots from Devon and Cornwall along the highway to the...
The tide of migration that set in toward the shores of North America during the early years of the seventeenth century was but one phase in the restless and eternal movement of mankind upon the surface of the earth. The ancient Greeks flung out their colonies in every direction, westward as far as Gaul, across the Mediterranean, and eastward into Asia Minor, perhaps to the very confines of India. The Romans, supported by their armies and their government, spread their dominion beyond the narrow lands of Italy until it stretched from the heather of Scotland to the sands of Arabia. The Teutonic tribes, from their home beyond the Danube and the Rhine, poured into the empire of the Cæsars and made the beginnings of modern Europe. Of this great sweep of races and empires the settlement of America was merely a part. And it was, moreover, only one aspect of...
Set Sail—Sea-sickness—Get a good offing—Sail ho!—Islets of St. Paul—Shipwreck there—Sufferings—Crossing the Line—Fernando Noronha—Fire—Remarkable peak—Arrival at Rio—Disappointment—Beauties of the harbor—Ashore at last—Village of San Domingo—Flying trip to city—Yellow fever—All hands up anchor—Sugarloaf Mountain—Off for the Cape. Immediately after noon, upon the 29th day of January, 1850, we east off from the wharf at the Navy Yard in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and with the pilot on board, proceeded to sea. But little time was allowed to send our adieus, for he soon left us, bearing with him some hasty scrawls, to the illegibility of one of which a very good friend of the writer can testify. Our commander was very anxious to commence his cruise, and having been delayed nearly one month for officers, put off upon it as soon as the last gentleman had reported. That bugbear to all landsmen,—sea-sickness,—gave me but little annoyance, although some of the crew appeared to suffer...
Fear reigned in the house of Vishnu the fisherman: for, but a week before, his wife Chandra had died in giving birth to a child who survived his mother but a few hours, and during those seven days all the elders and the wise women of the community came one after another unto Vishnu and, impressing upon him the malignant influence of such untimely deaths, bade him for the sake of himself and his family do all in his power to lay the spirit of his dead wife. So on a certain night early in December Vishnu called all his caste-brethren into the room where Chandra had died, having first arranged there a brass salver containing a ball of flour loosely encased in thread, a miniature cot with the legs fashioned out of the berries of the "bhendi," and several small silver rings and bangles, a coral necklace and a...
The Indians of New England, the lower Hudson region, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia, formed many different tribes, but they all spoke languages of one family. These tribes are called Algonkins. Indians speaking languages belonging to one stock are generally related in blood. Besides the area already named, Algonkin tribes occupied New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, a part of Canada, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and other districts farther west. The Blackfeet, who were Algonkins, lived close to the Rocky Mountains. So you see that one linguistic family may occupy a great area. On the other hand, sometimes a single tribe, small in numbers and occupying only a little space, may have a language entirely peculiar. Such a tribe would stand quite alone and would be considered as unrelated to any other. Its language would have to be considered as a distinct family or stock. A few years ago Major Powell published...
by Preface I have not seen the letter addressed by President Wilson to the American people calling upon them to preserve toward this war the mental attitude of neutrals. But I have seen the war. And I feel sure had President Wilson seen my war he would not have written his letter. This is not a war against Germans, as we know Germans in America, where they are among our sanest, most industrious, and most responsible fellow countrymen. It is a war, as Winston Churchill has pointed out, against the military aristocracy of Germany, men who are six hundred years behind the times; who, to preserve their class against democracy, have perverted to the uses of warfare, to the destruction of life, every invention of modern times. These men are military mad. To our ideal of representative government their own idea is as far opposed as is martial law to...
The neighbourhood of the Tower of London was, a hundred years ago, the centre of attraction for thousands of persons engaged in financial pursuits, not so much on account of the protection which the presence of the garrison might afford in case of tumult, as of the convenience offered by the locality from its vicinity to the wharves, the Custom House, the Mint, the Bank, the Royal Exchange, and many important counting-houses and places of business. For those who took an interest in Hebrew Communal Institutions, it possessed the additional advantage of being within ten minutes or a quarter of an hour's walk of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue and the Great German Synagogue, together with their Colleges and Schools, and several minor places of worship. Tower Hill, the Minories, and the four streets enclosing the Tenter Ground were then favourite places of residence for the merchant; and in one...
The Editor of the 1836 edition had added to the Memoirs several chapters taken from or founded on other works of the time, so as to make a more complete history of the period. These materials have been mostly retained, but with the corrections which later publications have made necessary. A chapter has now been added to give a brief account of the part played by the chief historical personages during the Cent Jours, and another at the end to include the removal of the body of Napoleon from St. Helena to France. Two special improvements have, it is hoped, been made in this edition. Great care has been taken to get names, dates, and figures rightly given,—points much neglected in most translations, though in some few cases, such as Davoust, the ordinary but not strictly correct spelling has been followed to suit the general reader. The number of references...
THE SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAINS The Swiss as a people often suffer in the judgment of the tourist by failure to live up to their reputation as a "mountain people"—to a glorious "Alpine" character. The dweller by the shores of the sea or by the riverine plains, setting his feet along a mountain path towards the peaks which go up to meet the sky, ordinarily feels a sense of joy and freedom as he climbs to the higher air. He seems to shake off shackles from his mind and to enter into an enjoyment of life which is less earthly and nearer to the spiritual. His imagination is impressed with the thought that truly he is mounting towards the stars. There is, to aid imagination, a definite corporal effect due to a slight change in the nature of the air. A quickening pulse seems to tell of the heart becoming...
When the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth they at once assigned a Lord's Day meeting-place for the Separatist church,--"a timber fort both strong and comely, with flat roof and battlements;" and to this fort, every Sunday, the men and women walked reverently, three in a row, and in it they worshipped until they built for themselves a meeting-house in 1648. As soon as each successive outlying settlement was located and established, the new community built a house for the purpose of assembling therein for the public worship of God; this house was called a meeting-house. Cotton Mather said distinctly that he "found no just ground in Scripture to apply such a trope as church to a house for public assembly." The church, in the Puritan's way of thinking, worshipped in the meeting-house, and he was as bitterly opposed to calling this edifice a church as he was to calling the...
In offering to the public an account of Expeditions of Discovery in Australia, undertaken in the years 1840-1, and completed in July of the latter year, some apology may be deemed necessary for this narrative not having sooner appeared, or perhaps even for its being now published at all. With respect to the first, the author would remark that soon after his return to South Australia upon the close of the Expeditions, and when contemplating an immediate return to England, he was invited by the Governor of the Colony to remain, and undertake the task of re-establishing peace and amicable relations with the numerous native tribes of the Murray River, and its neighbourhood, whose daring and successful outrages in 1841, had caused very great losses to, and created serious apprehensions among the Colonists. Hoping that his personal knowledge of and extensive practical experience among the Aborigines might prove serviceable in...
The accounts given by the Buccaneers who extended their enterprises to the Pacific Ocean , are the best authenticated of any which have been published by that class of Adventurers. They are interspersed with nautical and geographical descriptions, corroborative of the events related, and more worth being preserved than the memory of what was performed. The materials for this portion of Buccaneer history, which it was necessary should be included in a History of South Sea Navigations, could not be collected without bringing other parts into view; whence it appeared, that with a moderate increase of labour, and without much enlarging the bulk of narrative, a regular history might be formed of their career, from their first rise, to their suppression; and that such a work would not be without its use. No practice is more common in literature, than for an author to endeavour to clear the ground before...
The subject of this memoir is revered by multitudes of his countrymen as the preserver of their commonwealth. This reverence has grown with the lapse of time and the accumulation of evidence. It is blended with a peculiar affection, seldom bestowed upon the memory of statesmen. It is shared to-day by many who remember with no less affection how their own fathers fought against him. He died with every circumstance of tragedy, yet it is not the accident of his death but the purpose of his life that is remembered. Readers of history in another country cannot doubt that the praise so given is rightly given; yet any bare record of the American Civil War may leave them wondering why it has been so unquestioningly accorded. The position and task of the American President in that crisis cannot be understood from those of other historic rulers or historic leaders of...
My ancestors were transported from Africa to America at the time the slave trade flourished in the Eastern States. I cannot give dates, as my progenitors, being slaves, had no means of keeping them. By all accounts my great grandfather was captured and brought from Africa. His original name I never learned. His master's name was Jackson, and he resided in the State of New York. My grandfather was born in the same State, and also remained a slave for some length of time, when he was emancipated, his master presenting him with quite an amount of property. He was true, honest and responsible, and this present was given him as a reward. He was much encouraged by the cheering prospect of better days. A better condition of things now presented itself. As he possessed a large share of confidence, he came to the conclusion, as he was free, that...
It is, however, my impression at the present moment that the kind of life I trust to lead for many months to come, might be followed by hundreds who are fond of a quiet and somewhat romantic existence, and especially by those whose health requires bracing up, having sunk below par from overwork, overworry, or over much pleasure-seeking, in the reckless way it is the fashion to seek it. Only as yet I can say nothing from actual experience. I have to go on, the reader has to read on, ere the riddle be solved to our mutual satisfaction. “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” Travelling through the romantic little village of Great Marlow one summer’s day in a pony-trap, I came suddenly on a row of caravans drawn up on the roadside. Some flying swings were started just as I approached, and the unwonted sight, with...
At the beginning of the twentieth century there is, strictly speaking, no frontier to the United States. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the larger part of the country was frontier. In any portion of the country to-day, in the remotest villages and hamlets, on the enormous farms of the Dakotas or the vast ranches of California, one is certain to find some, if not many, of the modern appliances of civilization such as were not dreamed of one hundred years ago. Aladdin himself could not have commanded the glowing terms to write the prospectus of the closing years of the nineteenth century. So, too, it requires an extraordinary effort of the imagination to conceive of the condition of things in the opening years of that century. The first quarter of the century closed with the year 1825. At that date Lincoln was nearly seventeen years old. The deepest...
Providential Intervention.--Nature and Providence alike Mysterious.--An Unseen Hand shaping Human Events.--The Author urged to enter the Ministry.--Shrinks from the Responsibility.--Flies to Modern Tarshish.--Heads for Iowa.--Gets Stuck in the Mud.--Smitten by a Northern Gale.--Turns Aside to see the Eldorado.--Finds Himself Face to Face with the Itinerancy. The ways of Providence are mysterious. And how, to men, could they be otherwise? With their limited faculties it could not be expected that they would be able to obtain more than partial glimpses of the "goings forth of the Almighty." The Astronomer can determine the orbit of the planets that belong to our system, since they lie within the range of his vision; but not so the comets. These strange visitors locate their habitations mainly in regions so remote from the plane of human existence that his eye cannot reach them. And when they do condescend to pay us a visit, they traverse so...
On a certain August day, in the year 1776, two little girls were strolling hand in hand along the pleasant promenade that leads from the queer little town of Ajaccio out into the open country. The town of Ajaccio is on the western side of the beautiful island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea. Back of it rise the great mountains, white with snowy tops; below it sparkles the Mediterranean, bluest of blue water. There are trees everywhere; there are flowers all about; the air is fragrant with the odor of fruit and foliage; and it was through this scented air, and amid these beautiful flowers, that these two little girls were wandering idly, picking here and there to add to their big bouquets, that August day so many years ago. Every now and then the little girls would stop their flower-picking to cool off; for, though the August sun...
In prehistoric times the first man to make for himself a stone hatchet probably became the greatest warrior of his particular region. He may not have been as strong physically as his neighbor, but with the aid of so marvellous an invention as a stone hatchet he undoubtedly conquered his enemies and became a great prehistoric potentate, until some other great man made a larger and stronger hatchet; so down to the present invention has followed invention and improvement has been added to improvement to such an extent that it is difficult to imagine what new weapon of destruction man can develop in the future. What would the past generation have said of a man who had prophesied great armies fighting in the air? Even in the early months of the war there were but few who realized what an important part of the war was to be carried on...