Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/295

Rh should cling together or be separated; and we know that all her prayer before setting sail was that there might be no division of the tie gained so late and so hardly won. But when it comes to actual evidence of such persistent refusal, it not only has no support, but is directly contrary to the final events. The simple fact that the little Angelo was drowned in the arms of the steward is sufficient refutation of the charge that his mother refused to intrust him to anybody; and it remains only a question of judgment whether the attempt to save him should have been made sooner. On that point almost any inexperienced landsman might think that he could have bettered the decision of those on the wreck, just as every civilian sees where he could have won the particular battle that Grant lost; but the more closely even a landsman looks at the actual evidence, the less possible a revision of judgment becomes.

Upon what rests the impression that Madame Ossoli peremptorily refused to risk the fate of her husband or child apart from herself? Mainly on the evidence of the commanding officer; an officer who, having first wrecked his ship, and then saved his own life while leaving all his passengers and four seamen on board, was under the strongest conceivable inducement to throw all the blame possible on some one else. Nothing is more difficult than to obtain a clear account of the circumstances of a shipwreck, even by sifting the testimony of all witnesses; an eminent admiralty