The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1898-06-24
SAYINGS OF HEROES.
PRAISES THAT HAVE BECOME PART
OF AMERICAN HISTORY.

Thicker Than Water"
During the 1872 years of the existence
of the nation the Commodores, Cap
&ains and other officers of the navy
have made magnificent contribution
of patriotic phrases to literature. AS
the terse embodiment of popular senti-
ment in trying situations and emergen-
cies, they are not surpassed by ex-
pressions of a like character in any
language.
The sea fighters started in this line
at the very beginning of the Reyolu-
tion, in fact, before that tremendous
struggle with the mother country was
begun. Capt. Whipple of Providence,
r. l., for instance, when notified in
1775 by Sir James Wallace of the Brit
fsh frigate Rose that he would be
strung up at the yardarm for having
burned his Maiesty's ship Gaspee, sent
the laconic reply to Sir James:
always catch a man before you
hang him.
The lion-hearted Whipple, who, in
the preceding war with France in his
privateer Gamecock captured in a
single year twenty-three French prizes,
voiced in that defiant answer the senti-
ments of all the rebels in the colonies
that catching them was an essential
preliminary to the hanging business.
81 have not yet begun to fight, was
one of Paul Jones's famous replies to a
British Captain with whom he had
been fiercely engaged for over an hour
and who desired to know if he had
surrendered. 1t was not Paul Jones
who surrendered when the battle came
to an end. That was the celebrated en-
gagement between the Scraps and the
Bonhomme Richard. The Captain of
the Scraps having been knighted for
his gallantry on that occasion by
George ILL.,, Paul Jones, when he heard
of the promotion, Enthusiastically re-
marked:
Never mind; if / meet him again I'll
make lord Of him.
The first Commodore of the young
American navy was Capt. John Barry.
In the spring of 1881 he was hailed by a
British ship on his way from Havana.
To the inquiry as to his identity, he
replied:
'The United States ship Alliance,
Saucy Jack Barry, half Irishman, half
Yankee. Who are your"
Not the value nor the command Of
the whole British feet could tempt me
from the American cause" was the re-
ply of Barry to Lord Howe, in 1776,
when the latter offered him $1,000
guineas and commission in the Eng
lish navy to join the royal cause.
Equally patriotic was the reply of the
captive American sailor, Nathan Cof-
fin, when asked to enter the Kings
service: Hang me, if you will, to the
yard arm, but do not ask me to become
q traitor to my country"
Stephen Decatur was one of the
brayest men that ever walked the quar-
ter deck. Ills famous toast at public
dinner at Norfolk, Va, in 1916, Our
country! In her intercourse with for
eign nations may she always be in the
right, but our country, right or wrong"
would, If he had never said or done
anything else, have won him a place in
the memory of his countrymen The
destruction by him of the frigate Phila-
delphia in the harbor of Tripoli was
declared by Lord Nelson to be "the
most bold and daring act Of the age"
Decatur was as generous as he was
oid 10
Garden of the Macedonian, as the latter
offered to surrender his sword, take
the sword of a man who has so bravely
defended his ship, but I'll thank you
for that hat"
This was in the 1912 war, and the re-
ference to the hat was a reminder of a
bet between the two officers, made pre-
vious to the breaking out of hostilities,
In regard to the fighting powers of
their ships. At the first fire the Mace
DOMAIN lost her mizzenmast Hearing a
sailor remark to one of his mates that
they had made a brig of her." Decatur
added
Take good aim. my lads, at the
mainmast, and we'll make a sloop of
her.
Don't give up the ship" the dying
words of Lawrence, the heroic COM
mander of the Chesapeake, are among
the noblest ever uttered. The gallant
Perry flew that signal at his masthead
in the memorable battle of Lake Erie.
at the glorious close of which he had
the inspiration to pen that famous de-
spatch, 1--WE have met the enemy and
they are ours" It was written on his
stiff hat in lieu Of a table, on the half
of an old letter, and the additional in
formation in it gave the size and num-
Der of the enemy, namely, two ships,
two briggs, one schooner, and one
sloop.'
When the Constitution, under the
command of Commodore Hull, engaged