Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1898-07-23
SAYINGS OF SEA HEROES.
Phrases That Have Become Part OF
American History.


captains and other officers of the navy
have made magnificent contribution
of patriotic phrases to literature. AS
the terse embodiment of popular SEN
timent in trying situations and emer-
qencies, they are not surpassed by ex-
pressions of like character in any
language.
The sea fighters started in this line
at the very beginning of the Revolu-
ton, in fact before that tremendous
struggle with the mother country was
begun. Captain Whipple, of Proyi-
d.nce. r. L., for instance, when mott.
fed in 1775 by Sir James Wallace OF
the British frigate Rose that he would
be strung up at the yardarm for hav-
ing burned his Majesty's ship, Gas
pee. sent the laconic reply to Sir
James
ALWAYS catch man before you
hang him. :"
The lion hearted Whipple, who, in
the preceding war with France in his
priyateer Gamecock captured IN SIM
gle year twenty-three French prizes,
voiced in that defiant answer the SEN
timeuts of all the rebels in the colo
MES that catching them was an essen
tial preliminary to the hanging bust.
ness.
Who first raised the American flag
on a ship of war is one of the disput-
ed questions Of history. John Adams
claimed the honor for Captain John
Manly, New Highlander. Paul Jones
asserted that my hand first hoisted
the American flag" He was then a
lieutenant on the frigate Alfred.
There were several American flags at
the time and Paul Jones does not de-
scribe his particular one. Some his
torians think it was the pine tree and
rattlesnake flag with the motto: IAN
appeal to God; don't tread on me. :
Others assert that it was flag con-
sisting of thirteen stripes, with the
motto, Don't tread on me, with a
rattlesnake stretched diagonally across
them.
81 have not yet begun to fight,
was one of Paul Jones famous replies
to a British captain with whom he
had been fiercely engaged for over an
hour and who desired to know il he
had surrendered. 1t was not Paul
ZONES who surrendered when the bat
tie came to an end. That was the
celebrated engagement between Ser
apis and the Bonhomme Richard. The
CAPTAIN of the Scraps having been
knighted for his gallantry on that oc'
casion by George III, Paul Jones, when
he heard of the promotion character
istically remarked:
"Never mind; if meet him again
I'll make lord of him"
The first commodore of the young
American navy was Captain John
Barry. In the spring of 1871 he was
hailed by a British ship on his
wav 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 fleet could tempt
me from the American cause, was
the reply of Barry to Lord Howe in
1916, when the latter offered him
$1,000 guineas and commission IN
the English navy to join the royal
cause. Equally patriotic was the re-
ply of the captive American sailor
Nathan Coffin, when asked to enter
the Kings service: Hang me, II
YOU will, to the yardarm, hut do not
ASK me TO become a traitor to my
country"
Stephen Decatur was one of the
braveSt men tnat ever "alASN '"N
quarter deck. His famous toast at
public dinner at Norfolk, Va, in 1916,
"Our Country In her intercourse
with foreign nations may she always
be in the right, but our country, night
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 Philadelphia in the har-
Dor of Tripoli was declared by Lord
Nelson to be 1.-The most bold and dar-
ing act of the age,
Decatur was as generous as he was
brave. Il cannot, said he to Cap