Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/133

Rh Extracts from a letter from one Navy officer to another on the subject of the action of the Retiring Board, in reference to Lieutenant Maury:—

. . . . You rightly infer that there is great excitement here about the action of the late Retiring Board; lists confusedly and mischievously erroneous are in circulation, and from them no considerate opinion can be formed; but I know, officially, the action in regard to M. F. Maury; it fills me with astonishment and indignation. I have all along been under the decided impression that the Board had not taken any such untoward course. Just now, on learning what had been done, I earnestly predicted to Mr. my conviction that Lt. Maury will be immediately made a full Captain. He has won the highest honours of the profession, and should wear them.

It will be a great public wrong to have his eminent achievements and public works ignored in this way. The act is suicidal! The great benefits he has conferred upon our Naval and Mercantile Marine, upon commerce, navigation, and science generally, are too well known and admired at home and abroad to tolerate even the appearance of putting down, or aside, such an officer.

I am bound to believe that the members of the Board acted under honest but mistaken convictions of duty and Naval policy. There can be no doubt, in my humble judgment, of Lt. Maury's pre-eminent capacity for command, ashore or afloat. Nor can the opinion be sensibly sustained that Hydrographical should be inactive duty in the Navy, and that our organization, should imitate the Army policy of little side-corps.

It is a grievous error, a large public wrong, to smother, if not suppress altogether, the Hydrographic Office of the Navy in this way.

I write hurriedly, but enough to show you where my heart and judgment are in this question. It is useless to say more now.

Yours truly,

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