One large howitzer from the Mississippi.One large howitzer from the Powhatan.Twenty-four marines from the Mississippi.Twenty-four marines from the Powhatan.Band of music from the Mississippi.Band of music from the Powhatan.Each howitzer to be accompanied by a box of fixed ammunition, and their crews armed with cutlasses.The marines with muskets and twenty-four rounds of ball-cartridges.The seamen to be dressed in white with straw hats.The marines in fatigue summer-dress.The officers in white pants, frock-coats, swords, epaulettes, and caps.The bandsmen in white.Two orderlies with their muskets to be detailed as an escort for the broad pennant.A flag-bearer and two seamen as a guard for the ensign.
Our government should pay a little attention to the fantastic tricks, which its commodorial gentry cut up in such countries, as Loo-Choo:“fixed ammunition,” “cutlasses,” and “ball-cartridges,” taken ashore among a people whose forts are disarmed; among whom not one offensive weapon was noticed after months of intercourse; and whose nation, in its present condition, reversing the remark of Chatham, might be driven with a crutch.
And then too, two orderlies with muskets escorting “thebroad pennant”—a kind of an ark of the covenant carried before, and the American “ensign” playing second fiddle behind!—just imagine such a procession? It is equal to the swallow-tailed yellow flag, that I saw one day carried behind a high functionary, as I passed his procession coming down from Sheudi.
If a broad pennant means anything, it means this: a piece of bunting to designate an admiral’s ship or boat in squadron sailing, or in harbor: a cynosure for all the other vessels, because from the ship that wears it, orders are signaled and dispositions directed; but when it is taken from a main-truck, or from the commander-in-chief’s boat, to be boom-a-laddyed on shore in a procession, it becomes meaningless, if not ridiculous; a land officer in the field had better fly a distinct flag over his marquee; and an American commodore, who leaves his ship to land in an enemy’s or friend’s country, had better be provided by the navy department with a kind of “white plume,” like that of “Harry of Navarre,” or “thebroad pennant” had better be declared anoriflamme; but all trueAmericans have a weakness, which runs in this wise: that the stars and stripes, are oriflamme enough.
But it may be, that the commodore may be allowed to explain—to give some reason for boom-a-laddying ashore with his broad pennant, and having a sword-bearer to walk behind with his trusty blade in the streets of Simoda. In his notes to the secretary of the navy, of his second visit to Japan he says:—
“I have adopted the two extremes—by an exhibition of great pomp, when it could be properly displayed, and by avoiding it, when such pomp would be inconsistent with the spirit of our institutions.”
This pompatic paragraph appears rather anon sequitur; unless it can be shownwhenan exhibition of great pomp is consistent with the spirit of our institutions.
Theentente cordialebeing established with the “kingdom of Loo-Choo,” presents of agricultural implements and a hand cotton-gin, were made to the authorities, who returned air-plants and birds. A stone from the island was also procured for the Washington monument.
The commodore having entertained the regent and the authorities on board the flag-ship Mississippi with a supper and Ethiopian performance, the Lexington sailed for Hong Kong on the 15th, and two days after—the anniversary of our first departure from Japan—we bid good-by to the Loo-Chooans, as much, no doubt, to their delight as our own.
In getting off the Amakarimas, the Powhatan parted company with us, bound for Amoy and Ningpo, and in four days we had a Chinese pilot on board, and the next dropped anchor in the harbor of Hong Kong, China, from whose mail facilities we had been absent over half a year.