West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1889-06-27

obligation to Cesar does not relieve
us Of the payment of other tributes
to others than the Caesars of this
world. This reflection has been
suggested by the outflow of praise
bestowed by the American press on
the maintenance of England's nau-
teal supremacy as illustrated in the
''great feat of scamanship" dis
played by Captain Kane, of III. NJ.
s, Caliope, at Samoa, in saving his
ship, whilst little or nothlng-com-
paratiyely--is said Of the feat of
Lieutenant Brown in withdrawing
the Trenton from the reefs at the
last moment. This we consider very
unjust. Let us for a moment look
into the circumstances of both
'feats" and we are sure that our
readers will concur in our conclu-
sions.
The Calliope and Vandalia lay
together in the storm, the one large
and powerful, the other small and
weak. Impelled by the resistless
storm, the former began pounding
the latter. What does capt Kane
do? Assuredly, on the one hand,
in half an hour or so the Vandalia
would have been smashed to atoms,
and his own fine ship hopelessly
crippled. On the other hand, he
had such powerful engines that there
was bare possibility of his being
enabled to stem the storm and move
away. Who would have hesitated !?
He, of course, elected to face a pos
sible in preference to an inevitable
fate, and slipping his cables, trusted
wholly to his engines. Steaming
at the rate of 10 OF 16 knots the
ship moved against the storm at
about half knot or a triflc less.
and after q fearful anxious struggle
she got clear. This was no great
feat of seamanship. The praise, if
indeed any is necessary, in the case,
is rather due to the engineers who
succeeded in keeping their mighty
engines uniformly up to their max
imum power during that trying time
when the least falling of must have
given the advantage to the storm
perhaps irretrievably.
The case Of the Trenton and Nav
igating Officer Brown was vastly
different. He commanded ship
Invested of steering apparatus or
motive power, and that was on the
point of being dashed on the lee
shore. Now, it is all very we'll for
the nautical novelist to sit comfort
ably and imagine a brilliant escape.
But what Defoe, or Stevenson, or
Clark Russell, ever yet dared place
their visionary ships in the position
OF the Trenton as she plunged to-
ward that Samoan reef, and asked
and intelligent reader to believe
that the hero skipper saved his
craft {?
There are limits to even the license
of the novelist, and the public
would have drawn the line there.
Talk of nerves Talk of ready wit
and invention But think of Lieu
tenant Brown commanding a sail
less, rudderless and propellerless
ship in the height of the most fear
full tempest history has recorded,
his only hope to gain the sandy
beach beyond, and finding the cruel
coral and raging breakers under his
very foreroot Yet, in that suprem
moment, he did not lose his nerve,
nor did the characteristic ready in
yention of the American desert him.
Ordering his crew of 100 men
into the rigging, he thus presented
to the storm just the necessary sail
or its cquivalent-to drive his
ship clear and back into the more
open water. Simple enough, truly,
to contemplate, but where in the
annals of the nayies has similar
feat of seamanship been recorded +?
Indeed, this is something beyond
seamanship.
Certainly, Of all the heroic efforts
and brilliant achievements that
serve to brighten here and there the
darkness Of that awful Samoan dis
aster, none shine with more res
plendance than those of Lieutenant
Brown, by winch $50 human beings
were saved from the fate that few