The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1894-04-05

Jones, Hull and Laurence, by toote, Far
ragut, Gushing and WinslOw in its keep
ing it doesn't know whether that glory
shall be upheld when assailcd or not. Ana
it would have been no chIld's play to
tackle the armament of the lllllputlan re-
public. Chill has worldwide fame behind
her prctcnsiOns, although she IS rated be
low second class as naval power. she
has the blood of old Britannia i'll her sail
ors, too, a strain quite as legitimate as our
own and fully as likely to give Il good &C
count of itself.
The list Of her naval heroes reads like
age from English or American records,
with its Pratt, Coudell, Williams, Ed
wards Leighton, Thompson, Cox, Warner,
Rogers, Lynch, Wilson, Smith and Wood
Her crack vessels bear names known to
both worlds and hailing from somewhere
between 'I4and's End ard John O'Groat ;"
There are the Condell, the Lynch, the
Cochranc, the O'Higgins and the new
masterpiece whose completion was watched
with such anxiety during the late war
scare, the Pratt which is an English word
with its fifth" taken away. Should the
Pratt or Pratt, prove worthy the name 1t
carries our Yorktown, Baltimore, Phila-
delphia and Chicago might well look to
their laurclS Chilli celebrates 'prat Day
in honor Of one who i'll Il small way stands
for her Ncl-0n. The little republic has her
Trafalgar at IqEique, where the naval
pride of her great rival, Peru, was taken
down several pegs and the man of the hour
was Capt Arthur Pratt, or Arturo Prat,
who went down as did Nelson at Trafal-
gar, leaving to his followers Il memory as
the incentive to do their duty. Pratts eX-
plot has been duly honorcd by the scien
tific world, bat his personal heroism is
Little known outside Of South America.
When the war broke out between Chilli
| aud Peru i'll April, 1879, the former had the
| advantage in mum bers and strenth of ships,
but was handicapped by having to maintain
| blockade. Her first move was to close
| Iquique, a port i'll dispute against the
enemy. All her navy lay i'll the harbor for
| some DAYS. but on the 10th of May. there
| being no Peruvian flags in sight, the adj
| miral, one Williams, with Il long Spanish
| handle to his name took Il notion to sail
! away northward in search of adventure.
| He left Capt. Pratt to blockade Iquique
| with an old wooden corvette manned with
| twelve 40 Founders and a wooden gunboat
| CARRYING two 10-pOUndcrs and three small
! guns. Pra5t's own vessel was the corvette,
! ESmeralda. The gunbOat, COvadOnga, had
| Il commander with the Saxon name Of Con
/ dell
Now it happened that the same day that
Williams sailed northward. bearing well
/ out o sea to avoid the eyes of his enemies on
the Bolivian and Peruvian shores, the Peru
Wan fleet set sail southwark, hugging the
coast and escaping the eyes of the CHILEAN
! lookOuts. The Peruvians had all the eyes
on the coast and in lquique in their favor
and soon learned that there was nothing
between them and the coveted port and
town except II couple of old wooden hulks
| 50 their crack vessels, the famous Huascar
a modern armored turret ship built by the
| English Lairds in 1856, and the irOnclad In
dependencia, also of English make, started
out to make an early morning scoop of all
| Chilli held dear in the harbOr of iquiQue
| The IIuascar is POO feet long, with 3O(
horse power engines and carried then two
| 10-inch 300pOunders and two 40-pOunC
Whitworth guns The independents was
2l5 feet long, with $50 horse power engines
and armed with twelve 70-pOunders, two
150-pounders, four 32-pounders and foul
| 9-pounders. There We're twentysX gun!
against Pratt's seventeen, iron sides against
| wooden ones and the same odds all around