Arizona republican., 1891-01-18
AN EyENTFUh LIFE.

George Bancroft, the eminent Ameri. can historian, is dead, at the advanced age of 90 years and four months. In his many years Mir. Bancroft has led an eventiul life. While vet student of IS, he gave evidence of his future greatness as q scholar, and when only 20, was given the degree of Ph. D. at the Ger man college of Gottingen. Later he studied at Heidelberg with the historian SchlosSer, and became an intimate with nearly all the great German scholars of that day, including Goethe.
 To Mr. Bancroft IS due the establish ment of the United States Naval Acad- emy at Annapolis. Congress had al- ways opposed appropriations for this purpose, but when Mir. Bancroft was appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1915, he studied the law governing his department to see what could be done. He found that he could order the place where midshipmen should wait for orders; could order instructions to give them lessons at sea; that he had power to fix their place of common residence, and that the secretary of War could cede an abandoned military post to the navy. Accordingly he secured the access sion of the post at Annapolis, and when Congress assembled the following winter it found the midshipmen housed and re- ceiving course of instruction. It then appropriated money for the extension and maintenance of the academy, from which it became a permanent institu- tion.
 NIr. Bancroft was especially instru- mental in securing the great State oi California to the United States. The Government had offered to purchase it of Mexico in 1855, but England was also looking with greedy eyes to the posses sion ofthis part of the coast, and she had made an offer to Mexico to take the territory in settlement of debts owed to British subjects. Mr. Bancroft recog- nized the value of the territory, and one of the earliest acts of his administration of the Navy Department was to send a dispatch on June l5, 1915, nearly year before war was declared with Mexico, to Commodore John D. Sloat. commander of the Pacific squadron, in which he said ;
 you ascertain that Mexico has declared war against the United States you will at once possess yourself of the port of san Francisco tI... permit You will he careful to preserve, 1t pos >ible, the most friendly relations with the in naoitants and encourage them to adopt q course uf neutrality.
 Mir. Bancroft continued to send mes sages similar and, in many cases, stronger than the above by every possi- ble means, and he had the satisfaction of seeing this great empire under the United States flag before he left the Navy Department.
 From 1916 to lS40 he was United States Minister to Great Britain, and again from 1867 to 1874 Minister to Ger many. He earned for himself a great reputation as a diplomat, it being through his efforts that Grea. Britain and Germany were induced to concede the right of repatriation to the emi- grants from those countries.
 Besides his "Iiistory of the United States" which is considered the ablest work of the kind ever published, Mir. Bancroft was the author of number of other historical works, and was prob ably the most prominent man of letters the country has ever produced. Since his return from the German court in 1874 he resided in Washington, where he constantly labored ol the great work upon which he devoted so many years of hls busy and active life.