Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/152

138 held another person. Still those brave seamen, inspired by the conduct and true to the trust reposed in them by their Captain, did not hesitate to leave the brig again, and pull back through the dark for miles, across an angry sea, that they might join him in his sinking ship, and take their chances with the rest.

Let us not call this rash, idle, or vain; it was conduct the most loyal, noble, and true. The names of this brave crew have not been given; otherwise I would suggest the propriety of making some formal acknowledgment of the high appreciation in which such devotion to duty and such conduct are; held by the department.

During the lowering of the boats and the embarkation women and children, there was as much discipline preserved among the crew of that ship, and as much order observed among her passengers, as was ever witnessed on board the best-regulated man-of-war.

The law requires every commander in the navy himself a good example of virtue and patriotism; to show in himself a good example of virtue and never was example more nobly set forth or beautifully followed. Captain Herndon, by those noble traits which have so endeared his memory to the hearts of his countrymen, had won the respect and admiration of the crew and passengers of that ship in such a degree as to acquire an influence over them that was marvellous in its effects. The women felt its force. Calm and resolute themselves, they encouraged and cheered the men at the pumps and in the gangways; and finally, to Herndon's last appeal for one more effort, they rose superior to their sex, and proposed to go on the deck themselves, and, with fair hands and feeble arms, do man's work in battling with the tempest.

There were many touching incidents of the most heroic personal devotion to duty, and to him, during that terrific storm. Even after the ship had gone down and the men were left in the water, clinging to whatever they could lay hands on, offices of knightly courtesy were passed among them.

As one of the last boats was about to leave the ship, her commander gave his watch to a passenger with the request that it might be delivered to his wife. He wished to charge